This week, the Majorcan author Carme Riera became the eighth woman to enter the Royal Spanish
Academy.
Riera will sit on chair "N" of a body that consists of 46 chairs. She is a professor of Spanish Literature, specialized in the "
Golden Age", and writes Catalan fiction.
The academy is an institution whose members elect their new fellow members. The remarkable here is not only that they chose a woman but also that they elected a Catalan writer into the "temple of the Spanish letters". Riera was presented as a candidate by Catalan writer Pere Gimferrer together with Álvaro Pombo and the historian Carmen Iglesias and was also supported by the prestigious literary agent Carmen Balcells.
The new academy member was born in Palma de Mallorca in 1948 and lived there until she went to Barcelona in 1965 to study Spanish philology. Today she teaches Spanish Literature at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She specializes in the Spanish Golden Age and offers writing workshops. Her doctoral thesis on the poetic school of Barcelona won an extraordinary prize; she later rewrote it into an essay that won the Anagrama prize in 1988.
As a novel writer, Riera has won numerous prizes, among these the Prudenci Bertrana Novel prize for
Una primavera per a Domenico Guarini ("A spring for D.G.") in 1980; the Ramon Llull Novel prize for
Jocs de miralls ("Mirror Games") in 1989; and the Josep Pla, Lletra d'Or, Joan Crexells and National Narrative for Spanish Letters prizes for
Dins el darrer blau [engl. title:
In the last blue, available on amazon.com] in 1994.
She also won the Catalan National Literature prize awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya [government of the autonomous region] for
Cap al cel obert ("To the wide open sky") in 2001, and the Sant Jordi novel prize for
La meitat de l'ànima ("Half of the soul") in 2003. In 2000 she received, the Creu de Sant Jordi ("Cross of St. George" - highest civil honor in Catalonia), in 2002 the Ramon Llull prize, and in 2005 the Gold Medal of the Majorcan government.
Riera's investigative work has shown outstanding results in her studies on Spanish 20th century poetry, with a special focus on José Agustín Goytisolo and Carlos Barral, as well as on female literature.
When she learned of her election, she told the EFE news agency, with reference to her double status as Spanish and Catalan writer, that "languages are kind of a crystal through which we see the world, and I can see it through these two languages." And she added: "I am lucky to teach literature in the morning, and to write it in the afternoon."
(The original article by Pedro Vallín was published in
La Vanguardia newspaper on April 20, 2012. This is an unauthorized, approximate translation of some parts of the article.)
