Writer Sebastià Alzamora and translator Jordi Fité win the XLIII Cavall Verd awards
The jury highlights the "moving" character of Alzamora's poetry book and the "immense task" of Fité's translation
PalmThe poetry book Sala Augusta, by Sebastià Alzamora, and the Catalan translation of Poesia completa, by Elizabeth Bishop, by Jordi Fité Salvans, have won the Cavall Verd awards in their 43rd edition. Convened by the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (AELC), the awards will be presented tomorrow, Saturday, March 28, within the framework of a program of events that takes place between Palma and Santanyí.
The Josep M. Llompart award for the best work in Catalan poetry has recognized Sala Augusta (Proa, 2025), by the Mallorcan author Sebastià Alzamora. It is a collection that constitutes a tribute to the victims of the Francoist uprising of 1936. Sala Augusta is a cinema in Palma built on a plot that had been an old iron factory converted into a prison during the Civil War, where Republican prisoners awaited execution in inhumane conditions. Sala Augusta has been edited by Proa along with another long poem by the same author, Llengua materna; together they constitute an expression of collective and personal memory, which also evoke the present in the face of the dangers of populist extremism and the regression of language. Of Sala Augusta, the jury highlighted that “it is a moving and committed collection of poems, an exercise in historical and intimate memory made from discursive poetry with verses in abundance. It is also formed by two very complementary parts that give it great unity”.Sebastià Alzamora is one of the most prominent writers in Catalan literature. Born in Llucmajor in 1972, he is the author of seven poetry books and twelve novels. He has received a dozen awards, including the Ciutat de Palma in 2002 for Sara i Jeremies, the Josep Pla in 2005 for La pell i la princesa, the Sant Jordi in 2011 for Crim de sang, the Crítica de Serra d’Or in 2019 for La netedat and the Òmnium award in 2023 for best novel for Ràbia.The Rafel Jaume award for the best translation of a poetry book into Catalan in the Catalan translation category of the Cavall Verd 2026 awards has been given to Poesía completa, by Elizabeth Bishop, translated by Jordi Fité Salvans (Edicions 1984). This is the definitive edition of the work of one of the greatest poets in the English language. A traveler, an adventurer, full of curiosity for everything she did not know, Elizabeth Bishop observed and described nature, landscape, geography, and human lives with miniaturist precision.The jury highlighted Jordi Fité's translation for the “relevant immense task of translating the complete works of an essential 20th-century author, in addition to the fact that it is a translation that stands out for its use of very natural Catalan, without any artifice and with great precision”.Jordi Fité Salvans (Sabadell, 1962) is, in addition to a translator, an actor and theater director. With a long career in the performing arts, he has directed performances of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Goldoni, as well as creating commemorative shows around the figures of Salvat-Papasseit, Mozart, Camus, and Shakespeare himself. He has translated theater, poetry, and narrative, by authors such as Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Michael Frayn, and Edgar Allan Poe.The jury for the XLIII Cavall Verd awards was composed of Miquel Bezares, Mireia Calafell, Begonya Pozo, Eduard Sanahuja, and Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt, who served as president and secretary.