Journeys and Flowers by Mercè Rodoreda
Brought to life in English for the first time, this translated collection of stories by Catalan writer Mercè Rodoreda is beautifully rendered
Looking back at her collection of work, Mercè Rodoreda said: “If they asked me which of my books I wanted to save from a fire, I would choose this one.” This October, Daunt Books brings Rodoreda’s newly translated collection of thirty-eight short stories to life in English for the first time. Split into two sections – journeys and flowers – the tales weave beauty and sadness across their pages.
Translated from Catalan by Nick Caistor and Gala Sicart Olavide, Journeys and Flowers flits across pastoral settings, spinning enchanting and surreal strands of narrative encased in the spectre of war. The stories blend horror and surrealism with a dreamlike ease, drawing on Rodoreda’s life with tales of soldiers, women and animals rising and breaking like waves upon rock. Born in 1908, raised in Barcelona and experiencing the horrors of the Spanish Civil War firsthand, Rodoreda moves away from her earlier style of psychological realism in this collection. Her words are carefully chosen and carefully translated as the stories flit from village to village spinning the tales of people trapped in their own time. This collection moves the reader from story to story seamlessly: Rodoreda’s stories are like a collection of snowglobes, frozen and beautiful.
