A short life of the author
Mercè Rodoreda (1908–1983) was born on 10 October 1908 in Barcelona. She left Spain after the fall of the Republic in 1939 and lived in exile in France and Switzerland until 1972.
Life and Career
La plaça del Diamant (The Time of the Doves, 1962) — narrated by Natàlia (Colometa), a young woman in Barcelona before, during, and after the Civil War — is her masterpiece. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style that captures the rhythms of Catalan speech, it is at once an intimate domestic novel and a devastating account of war, poverty, and survival. Gabriel García Márquez called it “the most beautiful novel published in Spain since the Civil War.”
El carrer de les Camèlies (Camellia Street, 1966) and Mirall trencat (A Broken Mirror, 1974) are her other major novels. La mort i la primavera (Death in Spring, 1986, published posthumously) — a surreal, allegorical novel about a village with terrifying customs — is her most experimental work.
Major Works and Themes
Rodoreda wrote about women’s lives — their loves, their losses, their endurance — with a lyricism and psychological depth that transcends its domestic settings. She is the great Catalan novelist.
Key Works
- The Time of the Doves (1962)
- Death in Spring (1986)
Collecting Rodoreda
Catalan originals (Club Editor) are the primary collected form. English translations (Graywolf, Open Letter) bring $10–$30. Rodoreda died in 1983.