He received the National Prize for Culture in 2014 and the Sant Jordi in 2013
Writer, literary critic and teacher Vicenç Pagès Jordà, winner of the Sant Jordi award in 2013 with the novel ‘Dies de Frontera’ (Proa) and National Culture Award in 2014, he has died this Saturday of a cancer at 58 years oldas sources from the Navona publishing house have informed Efe.
Born in Figueres (Girona) on December 14, 1963, Pagès Jordà was also the author of the work ‘Els players of Whist’, published in 2009 by Empúries, and with which he won the XXXIX Crexells Prize.
It began to be known after en 1989 he won the Barcelona Biennial in the literature section, publishing his first work in 1990, the stories of ‘Cercles d’infinite combinacions’, which was followed by ‘El món d’Horaci’, ‘Letter to the queen of Anglaterra’ (Ciutat d’Olot Award ), ‘Un tramvia anomenat text’, all published by Empúries, and ‘En companyia de l’altre’, Documenta 1999 award, among other titles.
In 2003 he obtained the Sant Joan de novel with ‘La felicitat no és complete’, which was published in Catalan by Edicions 62 and in Spanish by El Aleph, while in 2004 the stories of ‘El poeta i altres contes’ were awarded the Mercè Rodoreda, published the following year by the Proa publishing house.
The writer, who had lived in Torroella de Montgrí for years, published in 2006 ‘From Robinson Crusoe to Peter Pan’, a canon of children’s literature. After winning the Sant Jordi award, he published, among others, ‘Robinson’, in 2017, a novel in which reflected on loneliness, communication and imaginationfrom the hand of a main character, a single middle-aged man, who one day decides to enter and settle in the neighbors’ house without permission.
In ‘Memòria vintage’, from 2020, he offered a “personal and collective” tripwhich began with the arrival of man on the moon in 1969 and ended with the premiere of the film ‘Pulp Fiction’ in 1994.
In the small Vibop publishing house, after ‘Les smells in literature’, he published in October 2020, ‘Les modesty in literature’, where he delved into chow cities, houses, animals or people smelledas described by authors such as Joseph Conrad, Don DeLillo or Maria Mercè Marçal.
Sources from Navona have explained to Efe that will be published next November on a newly created label of the group ‘Kennedyana’, an essay on the Kennedy family.
ambitious author, he liked to play with the readerappealing to him, seeking to change the theme in each of his books, with questions that could deal with the figure of the double as well as offering a parable about immortality in ‘Letter to the Queen of England’.
In 2014 the CoNCA awarded him one of the National Culture Awards for being “a writer who confronts contemporary life from human relations with a contrasted vision between generations, between genres and with special attention to youth, in an innovative way that has brought him success with critics and audiences”.
As soon as his death was known, through social networks, numerous entities and personalities from the world of culture have expressed their sadness for death From the writer.
The Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, has lamented the death of the writer and critic “recognized and much loved inside and outside the cultural sector, both in his role as creator and teacher. We will miss his kindness and talent.. A big hug to all the family and friends.
The Institució de les Lletres Catalanes has “deeply regretted” the death of Vicenç Pagès and has indicated on Twitter: “We are left prematurely without a great critic and writerwithout a ‘whist’ player on Twitter, but we will continue reading him”. The Gremi Llibreters de Catalunya has transmitted its “deepest condolences” to family and friends of the writer, a condolences that the Blanquerna University has also joined to express his sorrow for the death of Pagés, a professor at this center.
The former president of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes Laura Borràs has been “dismayed” by the death of Vicenç Pagès and has recalled that, in 2014, on the occasion of the National Prize for Culture, the writer stated: “‘If you are listening to this, you are the resistance‘ We will be for you, dear Vicenç”.
The writer Francesc Serés has pointed out on Twitter: “We will remember you, we will read you and we will write to you. How sad.”
On his Twitter account, Vicenç Pagès Jordà wrote on Friday: “We will not whiten the ash.”