{"title":"Merce Rodoreda","description":"Mercè Rodoreda (1908-1983) has emerged as perhaps the most important fiction writer of the twentieth century in Catalan literature and is one of the most interesting writers of the contemporary Spanish literary world. She is primarily known in this country for her novel The Time of the Doves, published in English translation. Josep Miquel Sobrer is a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University. The editor of Catalan Review, he has also edited and translated an anthology of Catalan texts, Catalonia: A Self-Portrait.","products":[{"product_id":"a-broken-mirror-paperback","title":"A Broken Mirror - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn its moment of great splendor the novel was held as a mirror of society: Mercè Rodoreda shatters that mirror in this, her most ambitious novel, which tells its story in brilliant fragments, a vision reflected and refracted and finally coming together in a richly articulated mosaic of life. Through this \u003ci\u003eBroken Mirror\u003c\/i\u003e, the reader sees events and characters spanning three generations and composing a kaleidoscopic family history ranging over six decades and turning upon events both intimate and historic--most notably the Spanish Civil War. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOpening with Teresa Goday, the lovely young fishmonger's daughter married to a wealthy old man, the story shifts from one perspective to another, reflecting from myriad angles the founding of a matriarchal dynasty--and its eventual, seemingly inevitable disintegration. A family saga extending from the prosperous Barcelona of the 1870s to the advent of the Franco dictatorship, \u003ci\u003eA Broken Mirror\u003c\/i\u003e is finally also a novel about the inexorable passing of time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51370093838559,"sku":"9780803290075","price":29.11,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/0NE7bNV4hO9780803290075.webp?v=1789150344"},{"product_id":"war-so-much-war-paperback","title":"War, So Much War - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eMercè Rodoreda's final novel, this is a meditation on the consequences of moral degradation and the inescapable presence of evil.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51373851508959,"sku":"9781940953229","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/1LAh_lqU5s9781940953229.webp?v=1789164465"},{"product_id":"death-in-spring-paperback","title":"Death in Spring - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsidered by many to be the grand achievement of her later period, \u003ci\u003eDeath in Spring\u003c\/i\u003e is one of Mercè Rodoreda's most complex and beautifully constructed works. The novel tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless town--burying the dead in trees after filling their mouths with cement to prevent their soul from escaping, or sending a man to swim in the river that courses underneath the town to discover if they will be washed away by a flood--through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy who must come to terms with the rhyme and reason of this ritual violence, and with his wild, child-like, and teenage stepmother, who becomes his playmate. It is through these rituals, and the developing relationships between the boy and the townspeople, that Rodoreda portrays a fully-articulated, though quite disturbing, society.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe horrific rituals, however, stand in stark contrast to the novel's stunningly poetic language and lush descriptions. Written over a period of twenty years--after Rodoreda was forced into exile following the Spanish Civil War--\u003ci\u003eDeath in Spring\u003c\/i\u003e is musical and rhythmic, and truly the work of a writer at the height of her powers.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMercè Rodoreda\u003c\/b\u003e is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Exiled to France during the Spanish Civil War, and only able to return to Catalonia in the mid-1960s, she wrote a number of highly praised works, including \u003ci\u003eThe Time of the Doves\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDeath in Spring\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMartha Tennent\u003c\/b\u003e was born in the U.S, but has lived most of her life in Barcelona where she served as founding dean of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vic. She translates from Spanish and Catalan, and received an NEA Translation Fellowship for her work on Rodoreda.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51373852590303,"sku":"9781940953281","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/sdX_lxT1-N9781940953281.webp?v=1789164468"},{"product_id":"garden-by-the-sea-paperback","title":"Garden by the Sea - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA Gatsby-esque novel about Spain in the 1920s on the eve of the Spanish Civil War\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51373905051871,"sku":"9781948830089","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/VGGeESntCB9781948830089.webp?v=1789164571"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/merce-rodoreda.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}