Ready for a grand journey?

Who dares to claim that Catalan literature is in decline? I can only see an increasingly ambitious, increasingly powerful creativity. In recent years, more voices, more styles, more generations have coexisted than ever before, as well as more proposals than in our entire history. Given this, I declare that it is evident that we do have State structures: publishing in Catalan, translation into Catalan, and literature in Catalan are undoubtedly so. Because there are books that contain, within themselves, countries and utopias. This is the sensation I have had reading recent epic epics that capture the essence of our chaotic and exciting world such as Cor pirinenc, by Lluís Calvo (Lleonard Muntaner, Editor, Jacint Verdaguer Prize); Arnau, by Adrià Targa (Editorial Proa, Critics' Prize), and El Periple, by Damià Rotger Miró (Galés Edicions, Mallorca Poetry Prize 2025).

El Periple is a vast philosophical poem of fourteen hundred verses, interspersed with dodecasyllables, alexandrines, and twelve-syllable sentences, divided into seven coherent cantos to form a colossal poetic sequence, a perspective of writing and of hypersensing in our exalted world that, despite multiple adversities, is still inhabited by beings who are moved by beauty. As the beautifully agitated poet from Ferreries himself declares in some final notes that function as truly beastly coordinates as those offered to us by T. S. Eliot with The Wasteland, El Periple seeks to be inscribed in the same line as masterpieces such as Nura, by Ponç Pons (Quaderns Crema, Viola d’Or, Critics’ Prize and Serra d’Or Critics’ Prize), and the sublime cantos of Jacint Verdaguer. Furthermore, each word is almost a dialogue with some of the most admired and beloved cultural representations in history, from a tribute to works like Diaris de Bord, by Iorgos Seferis and Fulles d’herba, by Walt Whitman, and L’esfera insomne, by Màrius Sampere, to the celebration of spectacular psychogeographies immortalized here with immeasurable sensitivity. After devouring this sensational poem, I affirm that El Periple, by Damià Rotger Miró, is one of the books of the year, and it is quite normal that it deserved the Mallorca Poetry Prize 2025 by formidable unanimity.

Damià Rotger Miró, and with all the right, is starring in an upward phase of a career that continues to rise. I was convinced that he would find it very difficult to surpass the magnificent previous poetry collection, Deriva Flor (Llentrisca edicions), but El Periple is, indeed, an astonishing milestone. I can only say one thing, and to say it I will reuse some beautiful verses by Lluís Calvo from Talismà titled ‘Ran dels cirerers’: now that you have reached the summit, Damià, keep climbing.