Local Interest – Josep Pla Fundació

Cristina Badosa has planned a visit to the Fundació Josep Pla in Palafrugell.

For those unfamiliar with this Catalan writer, Cristina has written an introduction to his life and works.

Josep Pla is one of the greatest writers in the Catalan language. Influenced by the work of Montaigne, Pascal, Leopardi, and Stendhal, Plà offers in his own a brilliant testimony of his time. He was born in Palafrugell, on 8 March 1897. He was an extremely lucid journalist who had travelled far and often. For him, travelling was not an exercise in tourism, but a discovery of life that he transformed into literature.

The literary dimension of Josep Pla should be assessed on the basis of two qualities that have been essential in the modernisation of the Catalan language and in popularising the historical and cultural traditions of the country. His style combines touches of vernacular, expressive simplicity and creativity in his metaphors and similes. As a result, he has contributed towards the standardisation of Catalan literary Language. His – very personal – recovery of collective memory has enabled the divulgence of Catalonia’s immediate past in an attractive, humorous and also ironic fashion.

His oeuvre is diverse and rich in genre that the author justifies by way of the need to conserve the collective memory of a country, the Empordà region and Catalonia, along with customs that, beginning with the Civil War, underwent radical changes.

Josep Pla died early in the morning of 23 April 1981 and was buried in Llofriu cemetery.

The Fundació Josep Pla was founded in 1973 when the author decided to donate his personal library, but it was in April 1992 that it consolidated to promote the reading and studying of his literary and journalistic work.

The Fundació has two floors: the first level is for a travelling exhibition, and is about his first book Coses Vistes, which was published in 1925. On the second floor is where the permanent exhibition is displayed “La passió per escriure”, with photographs, texts, books, various objects and documents, with interactive material

The visit will last about an hour and fifteen minutes. The admission price for seniors is 2,50 Euros. The Foundation can only take a maximum of 20 people for this visit, which will be guided and translated by Cristina Badosa.