Writer Sebastià Alzamora and translator Jordi Fité win the XLIII Cavall Verd Awards

PalmaThe poetry book Sala Augusta, by Sebastià Alzamora, and the Catalan translation of Poesia completa, by Elizabeth Bishop, translated 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, as part of a program of events taking place between Palma and Santanyí.

The Josep M. Llompart Award for the best work in Catalan poetry has recognized the Majorcan author Sebastià Alzamoraha won the Josep M. Llompart Award for Sala Augusta (Proa, 2025), a collection that constitutes a tribute to the victims of the Francoist uprising of 1936. The 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 inhuman conditions. Sala Augusta has been edited by Proa together 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 extremisms and the regression of language. Of Sala Augusta, the jury has highlighted that “it is a moving and committed collection of poems, an exercise in historical and intimate memory made from discursive poetry with free verse. It is also formed by two very complementary parts that give it great unity”.Sebastià Alzamora is one of the most promising 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.Rafel Jaume Award for the best translation of a poetry book in Catalan. In the modality of translation into Catalan of the Cavall Verd Awards 2026, Complete Poetry by Elizabeth Bishop, translated by Jordi Fité Salvans (Edicions 1984), has been awarded. It 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 all that she did not know, Elizabeth Bishop observed and described nature, landscape, geography, and human lives with a miniaturist precision.The jury has highlighted from the translation by Jordi Fité, the “relevant the immense task that translating a complete work by an essential author of the 20th century entails, as well as the fact that it is a translation in which the use of a very natural Catalan stands out, without any artifice, and with great precision”.Jordi Fité Salvans (Sabadell, 1962) is, in addition to being a translator, an actor and theatre director. With a long career in the performing arts, he has directed productions of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Goldoni, in addition to creating commemorative shows around the figures of Salvat - Papasseit, Mozart, Camus, or Shakespeare himself. He has translated theatre, poetry, and narrative, by authors such as Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Michael Frayn, or Edgar Allan Poe.Jury. The jury of the XLIII Cavall Verd Awards was made up of Miquel Bezares, Mireia Calafell, Begonya Pozo, Eduard Sanahuja and Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt, who acted as president and secretary.