The writer Vicenç Pagès Jordà (Figueres, 1963) has died today at the age of 58, after suffering a very rapid and unstoppable illness. Pagès stood out in the novel, in his sensitivity towards children’s literature and in his facet as a critic, independent and with criteria, which he developed for many years in the pages of EL PERIÓDICO, until two years ago he moved to the pages of the newspaper ‘Ara ‘.
Vicenç Pagès Jordà coordinated the literary supplement of the ‘Diari de Barcelona’. In 1997 he published his most successful book – ‘Letter to the Queen of England’ – until he achieved the greatest recognition in readers with the generational novel ‘Els whist players’ (2009). And that of the literary ‘establishment’, with the Sant Jordi novel prize for ‘Dies de Frontera’ in 2013.
In 2006 he published ‘From Robinson Crusoe to Peter Pan. A canon of youth literature’. Next November she was scheduled to publish an essay on the Kennedy family, titled ‘Kennediana’, on a new imprint.
In ‘Dies de Frontera’, Pagès wrote about various border territories. From the strange world of La Jonquera, of reaching 40 and doing so in times of precariousness, of reacting to that crisis with an inopportune ‘relliscada’ Parents and children, couples, mismatches and reconstruction attempts, teachers and students. And sense of humor. Or even better, the game. In his interview about that book, Pagès spoke at the same time about his teaching experience: “I also wanted to offer a different view of the institute, because it tends to focus in a more Manichean way: unruly students and well-intentioned teachers. But it is not like that, there are students who can help you and can hurt you, and willing teachers and others who are freeloaders. I wanted to show a complex microcosm.”
In that interview, he expressed another of his principles as a writer: “I want the reader to have a good time all the time.”
Of ‘The whist players’, Joan-Daniel Bezsonoff said in his review for this newspaper: “Vicenç Pagès Jordà has written the great novel of Figueres, the city where he was born in 1963. Like Dalí, another genius from Empurdan, he knows that the ultra-local –Roses, the castle of Sant Ferran , the Mallart bookstore, the Caussa records– it may end up being universal.
A truly independent critic
As a critic, with Vicenç Pagès we soon reached an agreement. The space devoted to reviews of Catalan literature was much smaller than that for news of interest: so he asked, and we agreed, that except in cases in which the need to have his opinion on a book that it was inevitable not to talk about for his social impact, his criticism would be limited to highlighting what he thought was worth recommending to readers. After overcoming a few drinks before books by, let’s say, media authors, we decided at a certain point that reviews of literary prizes would be removed from his portfolio for the simple fact that the award received routine coverage, its author was omnipresent in the media or , simply, ‘touch’.
Rarely did he take on the process of commenting on a book, going through the ropes of descriptive review, of having to look good without having to betray himself. And at one point, not even that. Some publishers confessed to the writer that there was a prize for this: a favorable review of Pagès was a guarantee for them, and a silence, a sign that something was wrong. And if there was a month in which there was nothing in the Catalan literary panorama with a face and eyes, he preferred that we look at other horizons or simply skip criticizing him.
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In another conversation with a journalist from this newspaper who will also notice his loss, colleague Anna Abella, Pagès spoke to us about his latest book, published two years ago, ‘Vintage memory. From l’home to the Moon to Pulp Fiction’. A “mixture of speleology, notary, cultural criticism, evocation, essay, microhistory and autobiography”, not without humor, which sought to preserve “things that existed in our recent history and that are no longer, that now They only exist in our memory, things that younger people do not know & rdquor ;.
Vicenç not only talked about what were memories for a generation: also about those that passed before his eyes so quickly that one day they were news and the next day, the past. In ‘Els players of whist’ social networks have already entered naturally. But then, before Instagram, Twitter or Tik Tok, it was about the ‘fotologs’.