Mercè Rodoreda was raised in Barcelona in an educated family who instilled in her a love of literature. She began publishing her prose and journalism before the Civil War. Exiled in 1939, far from the miseries of her country and the atmosphere of defeat that pervaded it, she was able to create her own artistic voice, first as a poet and painter and, later, with her stories and novels. In 1972 she returned to Catalonia, where she spent her final years.
Often compared to Virginia Woolf and Clarice Lispector, Rodoreda is a remarkably potent writer who has earned her place in world literature. Her ambitious, profound work is written in a style that conveys the essential with the utmost simplicity. Surpassing her predecessors to become a model for the generations that followed, her popularity among readers and critics has kept her continuously in print and made her the most widely translated author in all of Catalan literature.
«Rodoreda has bedazzled me by the sensuality with which she reveals things within the atmosphere of her novels.»
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