Reus, España, 1922 - San Cugat, España , 1972
He was an essayist, linguist, translator and, above all, one of the most important poets in contemporary Catalan literature, where he left a mark that is still clearly visible. He wrote the greater part of his poetry between 1958 and 1963. It was initially published as three books, and later as one volume, Les dones i els dies, one of the most influential contributions to post-war Catalan literature. Ferrater worked as a linguist and as an art and literature critic, having a very important role as an intellectual in his time. He worked in the publishing world as both a reader and a translator, translating works by authors such as Kafka, Chomsky and Gombrowicz, to both Catalan and Castilian Spanish. During the last years of his life he was a university teacher. His brother, Joan Ferraté, published some collections of his unpublished poems.
2022: Gabriel Ferrater's Centennial
- "When Ferrater came onto the scene, much of the poetry being written at the time became outdated at a stroke. His collections of poetry represented something truly new." Jordi Cornudella
Bibliography
Gabriel Ferrater was not a literary critic or a historian of literature, but it would be difficult to find someone who had a more significant impact on shaping the canon of modern Catalan literature or who contributed more decisively to enriching the interpretation of poets like Carner, Riba, or Foix.
Read moreNovel
Es una novela policiaca coescrita con José María Martín. El proyecto pudo surgir de la presencia de un inspector de la Brigada Criminal en la misma pensión donde también se alojaba Gabriel Ferrater.
Poetry
“Like Wordsworth, Ferrater endeavours to keep his reader in the presence of flesh and blood… [He] not only brings us to our senses, but like all true poets, he keeps us wondering what this means.” Seamus Heaney
The Catalan poet Gabriel Ferrater is a poet of personal experience, a poet who succeeds like no other in capturing the feeling of Catalan society both during and since the Spanish Civvil War. Because he came to the poetry relatively late (he was 38 when his first collection was published), he was able to draw on a body of experience which was not available to younger poets. Like Hardy, a poet whom he greatly admired, he wrote simply, from a sense of his own life, using detailed observation of personal encounters and situations to convey the wider, more general picture.
This book of verses of Gabriel Ferrater presents itself as a “corrected reprint” of the three previous works of the author: Da nuces pueris, Menja't una cama and Teoria dels cossos. This edition presents for the first time, as well as Les dones i els dies, all the other poems that Ferrater had published in magazines or that he had included in the previous three volumes and then did not recover. It also comprises a device of variants and reproduces the poet's versions of some of his poems in other languages. Critical edition by Jordi Cornudella.
It is without a doubt one of the most important Catalan poetry books of the second half of the 20th century.
En esta obra, Ferrater reflexiona sobre la felicidad y su acuciante importancia para el ser humano.
Non-fiction
Gabriel Ferrater was not a literary critic or a historian of literature, but it would be difficult to find someone who had a more significant impact on shaping the canon of modern Catalan literature or who contributed more decisively to enriching the interpretation of poets like Carner, Riba, or Foix. The explanation for this paradox can be found in these Papers on Literature, which include many previously unpublished or lesser-known pages. They are heterogeneous writings (articles, prefaces, dictionary entries, contributions to others' books, public or private letters, reading notes, or diary entries), but they all originated from the intelligence of a unique, lucid, and brilliant reader, equipped with a rich background that allowed him to establish illuminating connections. This volume makes a major contribution to understanding certain aspects of Catalan and world literature. It is also, of course, the best exposition of the literary thought and individual positions of a writer who had the gift of always saying interesting things when it came to talking about books.
Recoge las conferencias que Ferrater dedicó a la prosa catalana durante el curso 1966-1967. Incluye dos conferencias sobre La parada, de Ruyra; otras dos sobre Solitud, de Caterina Albert; y una dedicada a Pla.
Gabriel Ferrater dejó estos informes de lectura, discretas obras maestras, donde se refleja su mirada y conocimiento sobre la narrativa contemporánea. “Que este volumen salvaguarde la memoria de su magnífica labor de lector profesional, y que el ejemplo d
Los 58 artículos que forman este volumen se escribieron en 1963 y 1964, y tratan sobre escritores que se expresaron en lengua alemana, francesa o inglesa (además de algunos en lengua castellana o catalana). Los artículos se escribieron por encargo para una enciclopedia de literatura universal que no llegó a publicarse. Los textos son, por tanto, inéditos.
El volumen recopila cinco conferencias pronunciadas entre 1965 y 1967 en la Universidad de Barcelona, y más tarde editadas por Joan Ferraté a partir de grabaciones. En ellas, Ferrater hace una defensa entusiasta de la poesía de J.V. Foix, a quien vincula con la tradición literaria universal y con la vanguardia coetánea.
Obra escrita en colaboración con su hermano Joan Ferraté. El libro tiene cuatro grandes apartados. El primero concentra los artículos sobre lingüística publicados en vida de Ferrater. El segundo reúne los artículos inéditos. El tercero incluye los trabajos que Gabriel Ferrater creó para su traducción de El lenguaje, de Leonard Bloomfield. La cuarta sección es una aportación sobre lingüística escrita para una enciclopedia.
Reúne cinco conferencias pronunciadas entre el 26 de noviembre de 1965 y el 25 de abril de 1966 en la Universidad de Barcelona. Grabadas y transcritas por el doctor Joan Alegret, el propio Gabriel Ferrater las corrigió para su publicación.
Anthology / Selection
Esta antología la editaron de manera muy minuciosa el hermano del autor, Joan Ferraté, y Jordi Cornudella, dos de los mayores especialistas en la obra de Gabriel Ferrater.
Other genres
Reúne numerosas aportaciones sobre Gabriel Ferrater, extraídas de un simposio que se le dedicó en mayo de 1997. Editado por Dolors Oller y Jaume Subirana, este libro comienza con una conferencia del propio Ferrater, inédita hasta el momento.
Reúne todos los escritos de Gabriel Ferrater que no se habían incluido antes en ninguna recopilación: un centenar largo de informes de lectura, varios artículos, traducciones, cartas, respuestas a varios cuestionarios, dos entrevistas extensas que reflejan sus concepciones sobre poesía...
Gabriel Ferrater ha traducido varias obras del alemán: El estructuralismo, de Manfred Bierwisch (Ed. Tusquets); Imagen de la naturaleza en la Física actual, de Werner Heisenberg (Ed. Ariel); El procés, de Franz Kafka (Ed. Proa). También ha traducido obras del francés, como Las amistades peligrosas, de Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos (Ed. Tusquets). Ha traducido, asimismo, del inglés: Murphy, de Samuel Beckett (Ed. Lumen); París es una fiesta, de Ernest Hemingway (Ed. Planeta-DeAgostini); Una vida encantada, de Mary McCarthy (Ed. El Aleph). Tradujo del polaco: Pornografía, de Witold Gowbrowicz (Ed. Seix Barral); La seducción, de Witold Gowbrowicz (Ed. Seix Barral). Y tradujo del sueco: El doctor Glas, de Hjalmar Söderberg (Ed. Seix Barral / Ediciones Alfabia).
Prizes