The Bertrana Collection can be
consulted at the Barri Vell Library of the UdG. The collection consists of
1,187 books –many of them with dedications–, among which are books of
literature, 49 journal titles, manuscripts, letters and personal
documents. Looking through them one can re-live the personal and literary
lives of Prudenci and Aurora Bertrana –two lives devoted, but not without
many problems, to the passion of writing.
Aurora Bertrana, born in Girona in
1899 (*), was the only surviving daughter of Prudenci Bertrana, to whom she
dedicated a biography, Una vida (1960). Restless and with an artistic temperament,
Aurora Bertrana studied music in Geneva and travelled to exotic countries.
Her travelling impressions appeared in various Barcelona newspapers and,
upon her return to Barcelona, Edicions Proa published
Paradisos oceànics (1930), a
book which attained remarkable success due to its spontaneity and
freshness and, at the same time, its exotic and attractive topic. Domènec
Guansé wrote that "the innocent sensuality diluted throughout the book was
the feminine equivalent of the so-called pantheism of Prudenci Bertrana".
This period was one of great personal and literary fulfilment for the
author, as she explains in the Memòries. In collaboration with her father she published
L’illa perduda (1935),
followed by Peikea
(1934) and El Marroc sensual i
fanàtic (1936), none of which attained, however, the success
of the first book.
After the Spanish Civil War she
resumed her literary production with the publication of novels and stories
written in a simple and basically popular style which characterised her
writing. Camins de somni
(1955) and La nimfa d’argila
(1959) are dominated by an infantile perspective, whereas
Tres presoners
(1957)
expresses her aversion to war. She continued publishing regularly –Entre
dos silencis (1958),
Vent de grop (1967),
Ovidi i sis narracions més (1965)–, and of particular
interest are her books of memoirs,
Memòries fins al 1935 (1973) and
Memòries del 1935 fins al retorn a
Catalunya, which was published
posthumously in 1974, shortly after her death that same year.
RIQUER, Martí de (dir.). Història
de la literatura catalana. Barcelona : Ariel, 1987. V.10. pp. 73-74.
(*) Latest studies
prove, according (the Registre Civil of
Girona), Aurora Bertrana was born on 29th October 1892. See: Granell i
Nogué, Glòria “Els falsos cent anys d’Aurora Bertrana”, Revista de
Girona, 1999, núm. 193, pàg. 61.
Prudenci Bertrana was a writer who was born in Tordera,
Maresme in 1867 and died in Barcelona in 1941. His father, of Carlist
ideology, owned several masos, and it was at the Mas Espriu de
l'Esparra where Prudenci became passionately enamoured with nature and
hunting. He studied his baccalaureate at Girona and completed one year of
industrial engineering in Barcelona. The following year he matriculated at
the Llotja (1885). On returning to Girona, around 1890, he married
Neus Salazar and, having lost his paternal inheritance, became a professor
of drawing and a painter of landscapes, portraits of the deceased, votive
offerings, signs, etc. It was then, as an adult, that he began to write.
He was given the job of directing the republican newspaper "Ciudadanía",
until he was removed, imprisoned and prosecuted for an article he had
published. As a result of this trial, he moved to Barcelona (1911) —called
by Antoni López to direct "L'Esquella de la Torratxa" and "La Campana de
Gràcia"—, where he lived working as a journalist, writer and professor of
painting at the Escola del Bosc in Montjuïc until his death, without
having ever really fit in with the literary life of the city. His first
work seems to have been L'oreneta —earlier than the short story
Tard! (1903)—, which appeared in the magazine "Vida" of Girona. Around
this time he began to frequent the literary media of Girona and publish
regularly: the novels Josafat (1906), Nàufrags (awarded "El
Poble Català" in 1906 and published in 1907) and Tieta Claudina
(appearing in 1910 in a Spanish translation entitled Ernestina, but
not published in Catalan until 1929), the collection of stories
Crisàlides (1907) and, especially, Proses bàrbares (1911),
which signals the culminating moment of his production. Bertrana
transformed into literary material the unique individuals he met in the
course of his life ( La lloca de la vídua, 1915; Els Herois,
1920) and the animal world, which he observed with a certain contained
Franciscan virtue ( L'ós benemèrit i altres bèsties, 1932). He also
wrote satirical literature with the psychological novel Jo! Memòries
d'un metge filòsof (1925), a portrait of the doctor and writer Didac
Ruiz which was more successful with the public than with the critics. He
also cultivated theatrical writing, but that went unrecognised by the
critics (Enyorada solitud!, 1917; Les ales d'Ernestina,
1921; La dona neta, 1924; El comiat de Teresa, 1931; etc),
and contributed to "El Poble Català", "La Publicitat", "Revista de
Catalunya" and "La Veu de Catalunya", where he was theatre critic and
where he published the Impromptus, journalistic chronicles of a
subjective character, from which a selection was made and published in
1936. His work, structured on a minute and detailed observation of the
world, is based on his own life as a man and writer, though it is in the
trilogy Entre la terra i els núvols (L'hereu, 1931; El
vagabund, 1933; and L'impenitent, 1948) where he records all
his autobiographical experience, gathered around his frustrations, the
most painful of which was the death of three children. Gripped by the
crisis of values reflected by Modernism, Prudenci Bertrana opposed
Noucentisme from its inception, as demonstrated by his conference
De les belleses de la natura i del meu goig (1908), in which he
proposed an anti-intellectual attitude, a position he reaffirmed in 1936,
five years before his death, in a speech he gave as president of the
Floral Games of Barcelona. He never get over, then, the dislocation of his
time with regards to literary changes, worsened by his temperament which
revealed a rejected, inflexible and contemplative individuality. His
Obres completes were published in Barcelona in 1969.
Catalanencyclopaedia, (English
on-line version of : Gran enciclopèdia catalana. (2nd ed.) Barcelona : Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1986-).
The Bertrana Collection catalogue is
included in the Catalogue
of the UdG Library. In order to access this
particular collection, it is necessary to follow the following
instructions:
Before initiating a search, within
the options "Search limits"
and in the pull-down menu
"Location", choose
"B.
Vell-R-Bertrana"
13 photographs : b/w and sepia ; 24x18
cm or smaller.
Cited as:
University of Girona. Library. Bertrana Collection.
Includes:
4 photographs of Prudenci Bertrana, 1 portrait photograph of Prudenci
Bertrana, 1 photograph of Aurora Bertrana. Also included 3 photographs
offered by Ph.D. Mariàngela Vilallonga.
Exhibition
"Abelló
in the Polynesia: texts from Aurora Bertrana and Josep Maria de
Sagarra", Museu Abelló, Mollet del Vallès, from 12th July to 14th
October 2007
