Biel Mesquida, Honorary Prize for Catalan Literature

PalmThe inexhaustible, the groundbreaking, the irreducible, the ever-heterogeneous and, above all, the passionate and exciting Biel Mezquida (Castellón de la Plana, 1947) has been recognized with the 58th Catalan Letters Honorary Award. "Biel Mesquida's works are baroque monuments that exude passion and embody Mesquidian lessons at their peak: 'Good literature inspires reading and writing,'" the jury stated, considering him "a free, active author and defender of the values ​​that make us passionate human beings in dark times." "It is language, profound and connected to life and the historical moment," said Xavier Antich, president of Òmnium Cultural, at the announcement made at the Nau Bostik in Barcelona. The award ceremony will be held on June 8 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, and he will receive 20,000 euros.

The trajectory linked to the experimental quality of language that the Mallorcan writer has amplified and channeled into rebellion through poetry, short stories, articles, and also novels. His literary career began with one of the most prestigious prizes in Catalan literature, the Prudenci Bertrana, and with the census The salt teenagerwhose publication was banned for two years. "It was a scandal that I won; everyone thought Teresa Pàmies, who was the runner-up, would win. I was a Mallorcan guy, and nobody knew where I came from," Mesquida admitted to ARA Baleares in a conversation on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of another of his early works, the revolutionary The beautiful country where men desire men, Published clandestinely in 1974. "It caused quite a stir, which pleased me greatly. Back then, everything was debated, people were passionate about things, and that's what's sorely needed today—that not everything is black and white. That discussion meant that the artifact I had created was very much to my liking," he recalled then with an effusiveness that defines Mesquida's trajectory as much as his capacity to generate discourses and artifacts, as he says, that have always sought to expand Catalan literature and culture.

Breadth of interests and registers

In fact, the jury, in addition to praising his "complex, diverse, and always Catalan-language" work, wanted to highlight his role as an "activist for the Catalan language and culture," which has been demonstrated, among other things, by organizing more than 25 editions of the Mediterranean Poetry Festival, which has focused on "The struggle against death that dominates many areas of this society: the political, the war, the realm of relationships, and everyday life," he argued shortly before one of its last editions in 2023, "and I have always believed that poetry is a source of life." Among his latest publications, the book Steps through PalmaPublished by Vibop with photographs by Jean Marie del Moral, the book explains the city through Mesquida's memories, dreams, and desires. "The art of living has no history," the author writes, "the great masters have taught me. The art of living has no history. I don't write about my Palma past as an exercise in nostalgia, nor to lament, nor to depict absences. Pleasure that disappears, disappears forever, irreplaceable. Other pleasures replace it. Progress in pleasures, only mutations."