Manuel de Pedrolo

Manuel de Pedrolo

Manuel de Pedrolo i Molina (Catalan pronunciation: [mənuˈɛɫ ðə pəˈðɾɔɫu]) (1918-1990) was a Catalan author of novels, short stories, poetry and plays. He's mostly known for his sci-fi novel Second origin typescript.

Contents

Mini-biography

Manuel de Pedrolo's birthplace.

Manuel de Pedrolo was born in 1918 in L'Aranyó, in the Segarra comarca (county), in Catalonia, (Spain). After the Civil War he settled down in Barcelona, where he worked at a great number of jobs while writing as a background activity. From 1974, he was able to devote himself to literature, creating works, translating, and doing other minor editorial tasks. He died in Barcelona, in 1990, after suffering a long illness.

Work

Despite the fact that he is considered one of the most ambitious writers in Catalan, having cultivated virtually all literary genres, Manuel de Pedrolo is especially known for his vast production of prose, with more than 72 novels published between 1949 and 1985, many of which were detective novels. Most of them were thoroughly censored under the following terms: "catalanism, political opinions, religion, sexual morality and indecorous language"[1]. He also translated into Catalan works by John Dos Passos, William Faulkner and Jean-Paul Sartre. Throughout his life, he had several run-ins with Spanish fascists around censorship issues. He also received many awards and was bestowed with the highest honors in Catalan literature.

Masterpiece

Pedrolo's name will remain forever attached to the title of his masterpiece, his first attempt at the sci-fi genre, Mecanoscrit del segon origen ("Second origin typescript"). First published in 1974, it became the most broadly disseminated Catalan fiction book in the following decade, with 26 editions and more than 270,000 copies sold in 1986. [2]

The novel narrates the story of two children from a little country village in Catalonia named Benaura. Alba, a fourteen-year-old girl, and Dídac, a black nine-year-old boy, become the two only remaining humans on Earth after they accidentally survive an alien holocaust that eradicates all mammal life on the planet. As Alba and Dídac bravely recover from the catastrophe, they not only insist on living in a post-apocalyptic world, inhabited by myriads of corpses and deranged, psychotic survivors, but they also take up the mission of preserving human culture and repopulating the Earth.

Although the novel was not addressed to youngsters, the dramatic and yet romantically attractive position of the main characters made the Mecanoscrit very popular among teenagers, and even though it is compulsory reading in many Catalan highschools today, many young people will have already read it at an earlier age. From an adult perspective, Alba & Dídac's will to survive makes this novel a wonderful chant to life and hope. The well-documented scientific data and the use of cultured-but-readable language are just two of the reasons for the success of this book, which has had a deep impact on Catalan culture. (For example, it is interesting to note how many black boys born in Catalonia are called "Dídac.")

Notes

  1. ^ Pedrolo Foundation
  2. ^ Prologue by Francesc Vallverdú to a 1986 special edition for La Caixa.

References

All contents in this article come from different editions of Manuel de Pedrolo's books:

  • Manuel de Pedrolo: Mecanoscrit del segon Origen. Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1986. (A special edition for La Caixa, with a foreword by Francesc Vallverdú.)
  • Manuel de Pedrolo: Mecanoscrit del segon Origen. Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1996. (Edited by Carme Ballús Molina.)

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Manuel de Pedrolo — i Molina Activités écrivain Naissance 1 avril 1918 Segarra Décès 26 juin 1990 Barcelona Langue d écriture catalane Distinctions Prix d honneur des lettres catalanes Manuel de Pedrolo était un écrivain, journaliste et traducteur …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Manuel de Pedrolo — Molina (Aranyó (Segarra), 1918 – Barcelona, 1990) fue un escritor catalán. Educado en Tárrega, en 1935 se trasladó a Barcelona, pero no sería hasta 1950 en que publicaría su primer libro, un poemario. De 1953 data su primera novela, Es vessa una… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Manuel de Pedrolo — Casa natal de Manuel de Pedrolo. Manuel de Pedrolo Molina (L Aranyó, Els Plans de Sió, Lérida, 1918 – Barcelona, 1990) fue un escritor español en lengua catalana. Su obra ha sido traducida a más de veinte idiomas …   Wikipedia Español

  • Pedrolo —   [pɛ drɔlu], Manuel de, katalanischer Schriftsteller, * L Aranyó (Provinz Lérida) 1. 4. 1918, ✝ Barcelona 26. 6. 1990; begann sein umfangreiches literarisches Werk als Lyriker (»Esser en el món«, 1949). Seine Dramen kreisen im Sinne des… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Pedrolo — Pedrolo, Manuel de …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Pedrolo, Manuel de — b. 1918, L Aranyó (Segarra); d. 1990, Barcelona    Writer    A prolific writer of novels, plays, short stories, press articles and poetry, Pedrolo was one of the few authors to write exclusively in Catalan throughout the Franco regime. He never… …   Encyclopedia of contemporary Spanish culture

  • Jordi de Manuel — Este artículo o sección sobre biografías necesita ser wikificado con un formato acorde a las convenciones de estilo. Por favor, edítalo para que las cumpla. Mientras tanto, no elimines este aviso puesto el 10 de septiembre de 2009. También puedes …   Wikipedia Español

  • Pedrolo, Manuel de — ► (1918 90) Escritor español en lengua catalana. Destaca entre lo mejor de su producción: Estrictament personal (Estrictamente personal, 1955), L´inspector arriba tard (El inspector llega tarde, 1960), Mecanoscrit del segon origen (Mecanoscrito… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Katalanische Literatur — Die katalanische Literatur umfasst die Literatur der so genannten Katalanischen Länder, die auf Katalanisch (oder deren Variante Valencianisch) abgefasst wurde. Katalanisch war nach Okzitanisch die zweite romanische Literatursprache. Den… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • CATALOGNE — Les Pyrénées, l’Èbre et la Méditerranée: entre ces limites s’étend la Catalogne ibérique. Sa position excentrique dans la Péninsule, la barrière pyrénéenne qui l’isole de l’Occident, l’Èbre formant frontière avec le reste de l’Espagne, les… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”