BARTOMEU FIOL (Palma, 1933)
Bartomeu Fiol has a degree in Political Science. He has worked in the hotel and catering business, as a bookseller and cultural promoter. He was president of the cultural association Obra Cultural Balear (1990-1992), and has published numerous opinion pieces in the press.
His poetry has figured prominently on the Catalan poetry scene in the Balearic Islands since the publication of his first book Calaloscans (1966) (Dogcove). A disciple of Blai Bonet and Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel, he was a
member of Llorenç Villalonga’s literary circle that met in the Cafè Riskal in Palma in the 1950s, although he is essentially a solitary poet who has developed his work outside the aesthetic trends of the day.
In 1999, he published the anthology Tot jo és una exageració (Quaranta-nou textos orals perifèrics) [I Am All Exaggeration (Forty-nine Peripheral Oral Texts)], and began to assemble his complete poetic oeuvre in Camps de marina i suburbials: obra poètica 1 (2000) (Marine and Suburban Fields: Poetic Work 1), Cròniques bàrbares: obra poètica 2 (1999) (Barbarian Chronicles: Poetic Work 2) and Canalla lluny de Grècia: obra poètica 3 (2001) (Scoundrel Far from Greece: Poetic Work 3).
“For Fiol, the limits are in literature itself, and syntagmas and their sequence do not ever make us have a dream or figure out a request that is so effective that it makes the Madonnas or angels act, recurring pretexts of an
incomplete hope. In the limits, however, he defends the inscrutable, notwithstanding the difficulty of combat. The lethargy for the difficulties of language is expressed in the parody and humour of some Baroque-like plays on language, ever on the border of modernity and the vast legacy of tradition.”
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SELECTED WORKS
· Calaloscans
(Daedalus, 1966) [‘Dogcove’].
· Catàleg de matèries
(El Tall, 1998) [‘Catalogue of Materials’].
· Cave carmina, cape canes
(Moll, 1998).
· Camps de marina i suburbials. Obra poètica 1
(Proa, 2000) [‘Marine and Suburban Fields: Poetic Work 1’].
· Cròniques bàrbares. Obra poètica 2
(Proa, 1999) [‘Barbarian Chronicles: Poetic Work 2’].
· Canalla lluny de Grècia. Obra poètica 3
(Proa, 2001) [‘Scoundrel Far from Greece: Poetic Work 3’].
· Càbales del call
(Proa, 2005) [‘Khabbalas of the Ghetto’].
· Continuació o represa del poemes de Montsouris
(Proa, 2007) [‘Continuation of the poems of Montsouris’].
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LATEST WORKS IN TRANSLATION
DUTCH
· Het poëtisch gelaat van de Balearen [Anthology], tr. Bob de Nijs. Altea: Point, 2002.
ENGLISH
· My Father’s Grave [‘La tomba del pare’], tr. Montserrat Abelló. In: Polifonia en dotze veus. Palma de Mallorca: Caixa de Balears “Sa Nostra” /
universitat de les Illes Balears, 1993.
· Poetry in the Balearic Islands at the end of the millenium [Anthology], tr. Estelle Henry-Bossonney. Palma de Mallorca: Documenta Balear, 2003.
FRENCH
· La Poésie aux Baléares à la fin du millénaire [Anthology], tr. Jean-Marie Barberà, Annie Bats & Christian Camps. Montpellier: Publications de Montpellier 3, 2002.
GALICIAN
· Vinte poetas das Baleares [Anthology], tr. Xavier Rodríguez Baixera. A Coruña: Espiral Maior, 2001.
PORTUGUESE
· Antologia de poesia catalana contemporanea [Anthology], tr. Stella Leonardos. São Paulo: Monfort, 1969.
ROMANIAN
· Antologie de poezie de autori din Insulele Baleare Secolul XX [Anthology], tr. Nicolae Coman. Bucharest: Meronia, 2002.
SPANISH
· Veinte poetas de las Baleares: antología del siglo xx, tr. Nicolau Dols, Gabriel de la S. T. Sampol & others. Madrid: Calambur, 2002.
· Resonancias. Poesía catalana contemporánea, tr. Marta Noguer Ferrer & Carlos Guzmán Moncada. Mexico: UNAM, 2004.
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