Ruyra was in the vanguard of the Catalan modernist generation as they constructed a new literary model after 1860 when the Catalan language became the vehicle of cultural nationalism. He has been called the 'prince of Catalan prose'. This is a sea story whose epic quality has invited comparisons with Homer and Tolstoy and, in its treatment of the sea as reference in a psychological voyage, with Melville, Conrad and Hemingway. El rem de trenta quatre is a high point in Ruyra's work which is outstanding for his transformation of poetic rhythms into the music of his prose. Here, the narrator's internalisation of near shipwreck, her experiences, emotions and mental awakening, are mapped onto maritime elements that are detailed with a painter's eye. Through masterly dialogue, Ruyra characterizes each personality in the rich catala salat dialect of Blanes, centre of a linguistic map of the Catalan coast from Alacant to Roses, lovingly describing and naming its villages and physical features. An Appendix, by M. Lluisa Julia, provides a comparison between this story and Joseph Conrad's Typhoon .
About the AuthorJulie Flanagan was born 1945 in Western Australia, worked as a Radiographer and lived in Papua New Guinea before going on to study the Politics of South East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. As co-editor of TAPOL (Bulletin of the British Campaign for Political Prisoners and Human Rights in Indonesia) Ms Flanagan has broadcast and addressed numerous human rights conferences and settled with her family in Barcelona in 1983. As well as having a working knowledge of Indonesian, Dutch, French and German, Ms Flanagan is also fluent in Catalan, Castilian and English and has translated stories by Carme Riera, Robert Saladrigas and Agustin Cerezales for Origins of Desire (Serpent's Tail), Solitud by Victor Catala, Pel cami ral del nord by Robert Saladrigas, and numerous articles for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
Book InformationISBN 9780856686054
Author Joaquim RuyraFormat Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Aris & Phillips LtdPublisher Liverpool University Press