Category: Catalonia/Spain
-
90 seconds exactly
(My translation from the Catalan original “Tot just noranta segons” with the author, Antoni Cardona) When Nadia was running downstairs from the 6th floor, doing up her dressing gown, cursing the wind and her mistake she came across the boy from door 4, floor 4 the one who never says good morning She put the…
-
La mà que va signar el paper* (The Hand That Signed The Paper) by Dylan Thomas
(*Translated into Catalan below with Antoni Cardona) La mà que va signar el paper va enderrocar una ciutat; Cinc dits sobirans van posar taxes a l’alè, Van duplicar els morts a la terra i van partir pel mig un país; Aquests cinc reis van fer que morís un rei La poderosa mà porta a una…
-
“The skin of a bull” by Salvador Espriu (My translation from Catalan*)
Sometimes it is necessary, essentialthat a man dies for a peopleBut an entire people must never diefor a single man:Remember this, Sepharad. Make sure to keep the bridges of dialogue safeand try to understand and lovethe different reasonings and tongues of all your children.Drop by drop, let the rain fall on the seedlingsand the air…
-
Captured
[A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2021.] “I’m the only foreigner in the Catalan government,” Italian, Francesca Bria used to sometimes say when introducing herself to a public audience. In the two years leading up to the pandemic, her team’s work on “digital sovereignty” for people living in the Catalan…
Brett Hetherington 