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| Fons especials > Biblioteca Josep Pla | ||||
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| Fons especials > Biblioteca Josep Pla | ||||
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The Josep Pla Library
The Josep Pla Library On 22 April 1994 the Josep Pla Library Foundation of Palafrugell and the University of Girona signed an agreement to collaborate sharing research materials to promote studies on the works and the person of the writer Josep Pla. One of the objectives of this agreement between the two institutions is the cataloguing and the computerization of the library collection to make it more accessible through the university computer system. It is for that reason that we have incorporated these pages into the UdG Library website.
"A library should not be dominated by any fanaticism or intolerance. I am old enough to know where all these insane opinions and all these stupid remarks lead. A library must constantly demonstrate that, when it comes to access to knowledge, everyone is equal and equally worthy of that information". Josep Pla, 1973
The Josep Pla Library presents the writer's collection of documents. For those who love his work, the collection is of great interest because it contains books he had read, consulted or in which he had shown some interest. Pla was a man who had organised his own solitude in such a way that books were his faithful and silent companions in that solitude; he only had to open them to begin an unending dialogue. All the people who have read him know that culturally he was a Francophile. Consequently, there is a a noticeable presence of books on French literature in the library. It is also true that there is no lack of books on Catalan literature. Nevertheless, in a literary and cultural way, the collection is dominated by French. It is safe to say that the collection contains the most essential and representative of all that has been published in France from Montaigne to Sartre. There are the complete works of Sainte-Beuve, the greatest literary critic of the end of the 19th century; the complete works of Saint-Simon, one of the most brilliant and humorous of all French journalists; and the journal of Jules Renard (Journal 1887-1910) who Pla discovered while still young and who had influenced him so much, especially in the development of his own personal style. Although in perfect condition, it is easy to see that these books have been read and reread many times over. Also represented are Gide, so criticised by Pla, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Ronsard, Apollinaire, Stendhal, Joubert, Balzac, Molière, Anatole France, and especially the moralists: La Bruyère, La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, so often cited alongside Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, Maurras, Buffon and a long list of etceteras. As is evident, these great names of French literature make it, together with Catalan literature, the most complete parts of the collection. However, the interest he showed for Spanish literature was rather limited. He knew France, Italy, and perhaps even Greece better than Spain, having only lived in Madrid writing news reports during the years of the Republic. That is not to say that Spanish literature is poorly represented in the collection, only that it is present to a much lesser degree: Baroja, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Gracián, Azorín, Galdós, Valle-lnclán, Valera, Larra, Cervantes, Menéndez y Pelayo, Ridruejo, Gómez de la Serna and not many more. I am citing from memory because all of the books in the library have passed through my hands. Italian literature is not well represented either: Carducci, Lampedusa, Vasari, Manzoni, D'Annunzio, Malaparte, Berenson – although not Italian, he is important in Italy for his very pointed critical writing on Italian painting. Of course, Leopardi and others are also represented, but in smaller numbers. There are many history books, especially the history of Catalonia; no need to say that all of Vicens Vives is there. A complete bound collection of the journal Destino, with which our writer collaborated for so many years, is also present. Frank Keerl, a nephew of Pla, donated to the Foundation 325 original manuscripts of his articles with the rest being photocopies of the originals. In the library we have the collection of the Bernat Metge Foundation, or at least the volumes published during the writer's life, as well as the Moll Dictionary and some books on philology by Joan Coromines, including his Diccionari etimològic català abreujat. One complete collection of particular importance to Pla was the Manual del librero hispanoamericano, by Doctor Dulcet, considered by Pla to be indispensable in order to to know the books published in all languages in Spain and Spanish-speaking America. We also have the complete works of Marx, or better said Capital in eighteen volumes translated into French, works by Freud, Einstein, Keynes, Nietzsche, Goethe, Byron, Borrow, Kafka, Bernard Shaw, Rolland, Bertrand Russell, Leibniz, Wolfflin, Katherine Mansfield, Lessing and many more writers, philosophers and essayists. With such a collection, it is easy to understand Pla's eclecticism. The Library needs a good catalogue listing all these books that the Foundation could eventually publish. At this point our intention is only to give a general idea of its contents. Pla was a man of unlimited curiosity. He was interested in everything. He used to say history was gossip from the past, and for that reason he loved anecdotes so much. He was both cosmopolitan and parochial, with a lively interest in his surroundings, a sensitive and realistic observer. The Library is a documentary collection of his concerns for a better understanding of his times and the world in which he lived. Josep Martinell PATRON
Database of dedications Many of the books of the Josep Pla Library contain dedications by their respective authors. These dedications allow us to to reconstruct a network of the writer's relationships. From the catalogue listing corresponding to each of these books, it is possible to access these dedications. Alternatively, they can be consulted independently in a database linked to the listings.
Josep Pla
Josep Pla i Casadevall (Palafrugell, 1897- Llofriu, 1981) He was three years old when he started to study at the Marist School in Palafrugell and four years later the family moved to Sol Street, in one of the nicest houses of Palafrugell. At 16 he left home and began to study at medical school in Barcelona, although he did not like it very much. That led him to drop medicine and begin law studies, which interested him much more and which he completed. A year before finishing he joined the tertúlia de l'Ateneu led by Doctor Borralleras. It was there that he met well-known personalities such as Josep Maria de Sagarra and Eugeni d'Ors, two members of the circle who greatly influenced his cultural training. His literary career began as a collaborator with local journals and magazines, like El Baix Empordà, La Publicitat, La Veu de Catalunya, La Nau, El Correo Catalán, Revista de Girona, etc. and other publications like the Revista de Catalunya, La Nova Revista and, above all, the Barcelona weekly Destino. He later worked as a journalist at Las Noticias and as a foreign correspondent in Germany, England, France, Italy, Madrid and Russia. He was only 23 when for the first and last time he took part in politics, having been chosen as a representative to the Mancomunitat presided by Puig i Cadafalch. As a writer, his first important book was Coses vistes, published in 1925 and in which he detailed his experiences on the trips he had made before then. Later, in 1928, he published Vida de Manolo, a biography of the famous sculptor Manolo Hugué, Cartes de lluny and Cambó, and three books about the life of Francesc Cambó, all in Catalan. At the start of the Civil War he went to France and Italy, and when it ended he returned to Barcelona where he briefly directed La Vanguardia newspaper. At that time he began writing in Castillian and published several books: Historia de la Segunda República Española (1940-41), Rusiñol y su tiempo (1942), Viaje en autobús, El pintor Joaquín Mir (1944), Un señor de Barcelona (1945), La huida del tiempo, Viaje a pié (1949),Guia de la Costa Brava, etc. In 1949 he went back to writing in Catalan and began re-editing Coses vistes. In 1951 his book El carrer estret won the Joanot Martorell Award. After that would come: Nocturn de primavera, Cadaqués (1947), Primers escrits, with which he began his Complete Works, Girona, and Homenots. The quantity of books he wrote is such that the Biblioteca Selecta series alone published almost fifty of them. In 1957 he won the Lletra d'Or for his book Barcelona. By order of the president of the Generalitat, the Most Honourable Josep Tarradellas, Josep Pla was was awarded the Medalla d'Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya, one year before his death, on 23 April 1981, the Day of the Book, the Feast of Saint George, patron of Catalonia, at the mas Pla de Llofriu in Palafrugell, Ampurdán. Josep Pla [on line] (consulted: 29 oct. 2000)
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