Miquel Àngel Riera

Josep Pla Award / City of Barcelona Award / Joan Crexells Award / Serra d’Or Critics' Award / National Critics' Award

An exploration of man’s attitudes toward solitude and death. The protagonist, a literature professor, embarks on an investigation of solitude as the only way to fight the degrading power of time. This journey ultimately leads him to take refuge in the lighthouse of an abandoned island, where he experiments with various ways to combat the relentless advance of death. As in Els déus inaccessibles, Riera moves away from the realism of his earlier works to delve into a narrative that is essentially a parable about the eternal problems of human life.

National Award for Catalan Literature, 1988

The Gods Inaccessible (Els déus inaccessibles) narrates the clandestine love of a rural priest for a young man, Alexis, through the clash between religious vows and the force of passion. From the candid intimacy of his personal journal, the protagonist describes the experience of falling in love with the tense allure of unrequited desire. Divided between his moral self and the passion that makes him feel guilty, the priest turns love into a sanctuary detached from reality.

Miquel Àngel Riera analyzes the human need for love and beauty, emphasizing the ongoing theme of misunderstanding and lack of communication between human beings.

Serra d’Or Critics' Award 1984

Born from a minor episode in the previous novel, this work concludes the cycle centered on characters from rural Mallorca during the Spanish Civil War. However, the central figure this time—Na Biela de sa Vinya Nova—is defined by vitality and positivity as a direct response to a world dominated by extreme violence, war, suffering, and evil. Within the cycle, this character serves as the direct counterpart to the protagonist of The Day After Never (L'endemà de mai).

National Critics' Award 1978

This novel is the direct continuation of the previous work, now centered on the figure of the landlord, Cosme, father of the teenage protagonist in Morir quan cal. Riera analyzes the human psyche in its dark and destructive dimensions. Striking out from all sides amidst a setting of extreme violence, the central character heightens his capacity to inflict pain on others. Miquel Àngel Riera crafts a vigorous prose featuring long, intricate periods.

Sant Jordi Award 1974 / Serra d’Or Critics' Award 1974

Connected to the previous novel, in To Die When Due Miquel Àngel Riera revisits similar themes: solitude, the self and others, and the human condition. Here, however, he delves deeper into the lack of communication between human beings. The protagonist, an adolescent embarking on the path of life, gradually uncovers the true nature of his family members. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he ultimately chooses death as the sole response to a world consumed by hatred and misunderstanding.

First published in 1973, The Flight and Martyrdom of Saint Andreu Milà is the debut novel by Miquel Àngel Riera and a cornerstone of his literary career. Combining the momentum of the roman noir with the depth of the psychological novel, the author crafts a striking parable that opens with the escape of a gang of thieves who, after a severe crash, find themselves trapped within the wreckage of their car.

Through an unfathomable journey into the mind of its protagonist, Andreu Milà, the work unfolds as a harrowing vivisection of a tormented existence. These pages exude raw intensity alongside a poetic sensitivity that moves the reader through intersecting motifs: good and evil; life and death; sin and punishment; sacrifice and redemption. “Seldom,” noted critic and writer Joan Triadú, “has the device we call the 'novel' been deployed with such a penetrating balance of intelligence and humanity.”

The sixteen stories comprising Lascivious Chronicle of a Decadence develop the signature themes found throughout Miquel Àngel Riera's entire literary oeuvre: dual human nature, poised midway between beast and angel; the human struggle against the passage of time and death; human coexistence, governed by moral and social norms that often stifle individual freedom and happiness; and, lastly, the miraculous and magical power of the word, of language as a vehicle for creating a happier world. However, unlike his novels, these short stories introduce a degree of distance through an ever-surprising lens, imbued with a distinct humor, irony, and an unmistakable sense of magic.

Está formado por catorce cuentos, escritos entre 1974 y 1977, en los que el autor pretende analizar la realidad humana, a medio camino entre el animal y el ángel. Riera construye sus narraciones con planteamientos y con tiempos muy diferentes, a partir de una prosa que oscila entre el realismo y la prosa imaginativa, pero que siempre está empapada de la más auténtica poesía.

Miquel Àngel Riera vuelve escribir un libro exclusivamente dedicado a la temática amorosa. Desde el primer poema, insiste en la naturaleza "corporal" del amor. De hecho, todo el libro es un análisis de la relación del "yo" y del "tú", del vínculo establecido entre el poeta y la amada. 

The purchase of an apartment on Palma's Passeig Marítim in the early 1990s—at a time when Miquel Àngel Riera sought to put into practice his ideas on pursuing happiness and making the most of the final stretch of life—serves as the central image governing his final collection of poems. Eleven years after Book of Beatitudes (Llibre de benaventurances), during the summer of 1991 between May and September, he completed The Apartment Overlooking the Bay, which was published a year later. The pursuit of literary perfection and respect for his readers that dominated these final years of his life—during which he also revised Poems to Nai (Poemes a Nai), Biography (Biografia), and Book of Beatitudes—led him to assemble a new edition just a year later, in 1993, containing extensive revisions. The Apartment Overlooking the Bay marks a return to the purest form of intimate, subjective love poetry, reminiscent of Poems to Nai. Here, the discourse addressed to "others" retreats far into the background; instead, the entire volume is governed by an analysis of the relationship between the poet's "I" and the beloved "you," Nai.

A pesar de publicarse más tarde, La bellesa de l’home fue escrito entre 1971 y 1972. Tanto formalmente como por el contenido, continúa la línea de una poesía reflexiva, que alterna los poemas largos con algunos muy breves. Aborda uno de los temas principales del pensamiento estético de Miquel Àngel Riera: los vínculos indescifrables entre el ser humano y la investigación de la belleza, sin abandonar el tema central de toda su poesía: el amor del poeta por Nai. Riera defiende un nuevo humanismo, pese a ser consciente que "el hombre es un lobo para el hombre".

Después de unos años de silencio, Miquel Àngel Riera volvió a la poesía con Biografia. El poeta, siguiendo los consejos de Joan Oliver "Pere Quart", eliminó las imágenes oníricas o demasiado automáticas y comenzó, de este modo, una expresión más transparente y serena. En este volumen quiere fijar sus planteamientos personales ante la vida y el mundo exterior. Se trata de una poesía discursiva, en que predominan las composiciones largas y polimétricas. Se entrecruzan pasado y presente, el amor a Nai y la relación del yo poético con los otros, en una versión muy personal del denominado "compromiso cívico". Cómo afirma Francisco Díaz de Castro, "Se trata, en este proceso temporal discontinuo, de afirmar una imagen personal de él mismo en el presente a través de la trayectoria recorrida, así como la descripción de los acondicionamientos y circunstancias históricos, espaciales y humanos que han llevado al poeta a ser quién es".

Paràbola i clam de la cosa humana cierra el camino iniciado con Biografia, si bien se detectan en él algunos ecos clásicos. Se trata de un manifiesto en defensa de la libertad individual, del yo en frente de los otros, en que Riera reclama otra vez el interés por lo humano. Este discurso es surcado por poemas amorosos, donde reivindica la dimensión física o corporal del amor.

La aparición de este primer libro de poemas de Miquel Àngel Riera representó un hito en el panorama de la poesía mallorquina de los años sesenta. Los trece poemas que lo forman afrontan el tema amoroso con un lenguaje absolutamente renovador, que proviene de la lectura de autores de la Generación del 27 como Vicente Aleixandre o Pedro Salinas. Según decía Josep M. Llompart en el prólogo, "los Poemas a Nai son una de las creaciones más puras, más sazonadas, de más bello y perfecto equilibrio que ha logrado la poesía insular de hoy".

In one volum:

• Fuita i martiri de Sant Andreu Milà
• Morir quan cal
• L'endemà de mai
• La rara anatomia dels centaures
• Panorama amb dona
• Els déus inaccessibles
• Illa Flaubert
• Crònica lasciva d'una decadència. 

This new edition of the Complete Poetic Works (Obra Poètica Completa) of Miquel Àngel Riera gathers all of his poetry books. Professor Pere Rosselló Bover edited the volume and provided the introductory text.