Selected poems - Salvador Espriu

Considering how much poetry the great Catalan writer Salvador Espriu wrote,

a representative selection is a tall order for any translator. Louis

Rodrigues has limited his choice to a hundred poems, in order to highlight

some of the more notable and original features -- features which challenge

the ingenuity of the translator: the absence of articles in the formulation

of clauses and sentences, abrupt transitions of tense, a constant use of

alliteration and paronomasia, the complex syntax, a degree of hermeticism.

Yet the conceptual rigour and precision of the ideas expressed and the

haunting rhythms which are captured here are more than a shadow of the

original.

Espriu's mission was to make the Catalan language sing and survive

the bleak years when Franco insisted that a unified Spain required a single

tongue and forbade the use of the other national languages. The vigour --

intellectual and lyrical -- of Espriu's poems was and remains an

inspiration and a consolation to all Catalan speakers.