North American publisher Tupelo Press published the English translation of: Xeixa: Fourteen Catalan Poets Poetry anthology, edited by Marlon L. Fick and Francisca Esteve with the support of the IRL. It includes work by the following Catalan authors: Màrius Sampere, Teresa Pascual, Antònia Vicens, Rosa Font Massot, Joan Margarit, Ponç Pons, Jordi Valls Pozo, Manuel Forcano, Cèlia Sànchez-Mústich, Feliu Formosa, Jordi Virallonga, David Castillo, Josep Piera and Francesc Parcerisas.

This anthology received praise from internationally renowned authors after hitting the shelves. Ilya Kaminsky notes that, “Xeixa: Fourteen Catalan Poets Poetry anthology is a surprisingly generous collection that demonstrates how a Catalan poem can be as appealing, terrifying and inspiring in English. What a beautiful, necessary book! Bravo.” And Steve Yarbrough emphasises that “these are sensitive, outstanding translations.”

About the book

In the period after the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco’s fascist government banned people in Catalonia from speaking, reading or writing in Catalan - crimes punishable by imprisonment or execution. Catalan poetry was only available secretly on the black market during that time. Marlon L. Fick and Francisca Esteve travelled to meet every one of the poets featured in this anthology, setting off on a long journey taking in the joy, pain and friendship of translation. These 14 poets act like 14 mirrors, providing beautiful, lyric poetry that’s at times ecstatic, at times nostalgic and always committed, and which had been completely unavailable to readers in the United States.

About the editors

Marlon L. Fick graduated from the University of Kansas, gained his masters in New York and returned to the University of Kansas for his PhD. He has written three volumes of poetry published in Mexico, the novel The Nowhere Man (Jaded Ibis, 2015), and edited and translated The River Is Wide / El río es ancho: Twenty Mexican Poets (New Mexico, 2005). Having received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, ConaCulta in Mexico, the Ramon Llull Prize for Literature in Catalonia and the Latitudes Foundation Best Latin American Translator Award, he now teaches at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.

Francisca Esteve was born in Valencia, grew up in Barcelona and joined the resistance that fought to keep Catalan culture alive under Franco’s fascist government. She trained at the Massana Applied Arts School and worked as a painter before emigrating to Mexico City. After she and Marlon Fick married, they lived in China before returning to the United States in 2014.