Arendt in Catalan

On the fiftieth anniversary of Hannah Arendt's death, I take a look at the Catalan editions of her works, starting with the outstanding contribution of the publisher Lleonard Muntaner, which began in 2006 with the translation of the Conversations with Hannah Arendtby Ramon Farrés, which includes the complete transcript of three conversations and two roundtables. The first conversation is the well-known television interview with Günter Gaus, broadcast on October 28, 1964, in which Arendt states that she does not consider herself a philosopher, defining herself instead as a political theorist. The book has an extensive epilogue by Xavier Antich, professor of aesthetics, which touches on some of the main lines of Arendt's thought. It is followed by Participate in the world (2020), a compilation of articles written for the German-language Jewish magazine Aufbau during the period of exile, between 1941 and 1945, translated by Anna Soler Horta. The edition includes an appendix with the minutes of the 1942 meetings of the Young Jewish Group in New York, featuring prominent contributions by Arendt, translated by Edgar Straehle. Lleonard Muntaner Publishers' contribution to the dissemination of Arendt's work is further enhanced by the publication of Civil disobedience (2022) and Personal responsibility under the dictatorship (2025), translated by Dolors Udina.

The aforementioned books, except the ConversationsThey contain valuable introductory studies by the philosopher Stefania Fantauzzi, a specialist in Arendtian thought. In the prologue of Civil disobedienceFantauzzi explains Arendt's understanding of disobedience as a legitimate space for political action between legality and duties, guaranteeing individual freedom. Thus, an act of disobedience is legitimate if it is not a private act inspired by conscience, but rather a response in favor of the general interest. Disobedience to the law, in Arendtian terms, is the claim to rights by those who do not have them. In the prologue to Personal responsibilityFantuzzi presents Arendt's thesis that politics is based not on obedience or conformity, but on consent and individual responsibility, which can be exercised even in totalitarian regimes. Fantuzzi confirms Arendt's militarism in Participate in the worldand the arguments he uses to justify the creation of a Jewish army to fight Nazism.

The Arredian Universe

Other publishers have also contributed to expanding the Arendtian universe in Catalan, but to a lesser extent. For example, we can find Arendt's complete poetry collected in the edition Poems (Edicions del buc, 2018), translated into Catalan by Lola Andrés and Anacleto Ferrer, is a collection of 71 poems, 21 of which are from her youth, written between 1923 and 1926 (while she was studying philosophy in Marburg and Heidelberg) and reflecting her love life; the remaining 50 are poems from her exile and later years, written between 1942 and 1961, among which the poem dedicated to her second husband, the philosopher Blumenfeld, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, stands out, as well as poems composed in memory of deceased friends, such as Walter Benjamin. It is a collection that reveals the most personal and intimate side of this thinker.

Another work translated into Catalan is On violence (Catalan International Institute for Peace and Ángulo Editorial, 2011), translated by Ángela Lorena, Professor of Philosophy and Feminist Theory at the University of Barcelona, ​​and with a prologue by Fina Birulés, philosopher and leading expert on Arendt in Spain, which helps to situate the reflections within a particularly turbulent period marked by the nonviolent struggle for civil rights, the pacifist rebellion against the Vietnam War, and the events of May '68. The text is the revised version of Arendt's contribution to a highly controversial debate on the legitimacy of violence with philosopher Noam Chomsky, poet Robert Lowell, and Irish politician and intellectual Conor Cru in New York. According to Birulés, Arendt defends the thesis that violence is opposed to power and that neither phenomenon has a biological or irrational origin. For Arendt, violence is anti-political, apolitical, or pre-political because it has an instrumental character, follows the dynamic of ends and means, and appears inspired by the rage provoked by the feeling of injustice. In any case, she does not declare herself a pacifist, considering that violence can be a necessary step to achieve freedom.

Furthermore, her personal notes on the tragic life and death of her friend Benjamin, titled Walter Benjamin 1892-1940 (Flâneur, 2024), thanks to the translation by the writer Yannick Garcia; and the essay translated from French The crisis of culture (Pórtico, 1989), by Jaume Colomer and Àlvar Valls, which includes the conference given in Barcelona by Alain Finkielkraut: Hannah Arendt and the crisis of cultureBut, without a doubt, one of the milestones celebrated with the greatest satisfaction is the reissue of The human condition (Edicions 62, 2023), in the version that the Catalan philosopher Oriol Farrés had already prepared in 2009 for the publisher Empúries, which was out of print.

The Catalan publishing landscape for Arendt is completed with the publication of a series of studies on the thinker: first, we must mention the very recent essay Hannah Arendt's Relevance: The Origins of Totalitarianism and the 21st Century (Affairs, 2025), by his disciple and biographer Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, translated by Gustau Muñoz; the book Hannah Arendt. Thinking in a Time of Darkness (Enoanda, 2022), by the philosopher and translator Edgar Straehle; the doctoral thesis Political action and theory in Hannah Arendt (UB, 2000), by Anna Masó; the four studies on Arendt also by Masó, entitled Regarding Hannah Arendt (UB Editions, 2020); and especially the contributions of Fina Birulés with the essay Hannah Arendt: The World at Stake (Arcadia, 2023), in which he delves deeper into the notions of world and natality, and a second book entitled Hannah Arendt: Political Freedom and Totalitarianism (Gedisa, 2019), in which he analyzes the concepts of totalitarianism and freedom, with a prologue by Laura Llevadot, director of the post-foundational political philosophy collection in which the publication is framed. One final reference is Freedom according to Arendt (Tàndem, 2001), a unique book written by Maite Larrauri and illustrated by Max, which lies somewhere between popular science and comics.

Increased translations

The continued increase in Catalan translations of Arendt's works demonstrates the great interest her thought arouses, due to the enduring relevance of the topics she addresses. However, there is still a long way to go to normalize access to her entire body of work for Catalan-speaking readers, as several key titles remain untranslated, such as The origins of totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem, the doctoral thesis The concept of love in Saint Augustine; the book dedicated to the assimilated Jewish writer Rahel Varnhagen; the texts on the Jewish question; and other works such as Men in a time of darkness (except for the chapter dedicated to Benjamin translated into Catalan), About the revolution, the interpretation of Marx within the framework of Western political thought; the writings on Palestine; the personal notes and sketches; the articles and texts on republicanism and other political topics; and the correspondence with Martin Heidegger, Gershom Scholem, Mary McCarthy, Karl Jaspers, and other friends.