We read "The Garden on the Sea" by Mercè Rodoreta, one of the most beautiful voices in Catalan literature
A lazy summer somewhere on the coast in Catalonia in the 1920s...
In Bordeaux, we like to remember that Mercè Rodoreda (1908-1983) lived here for a few years in a small shop on Rue Chauffour, where she had a sewing workshop. "I have a sewing machine and a mannequin, and my most fervent desire is to see everything in flames." The writer, one of the great voices of Catalan literature, translated all over the world, earned her living working for chic stores, reading García Márquez, and waiting for her lover.
Zulma
Zulma has just published the first French translation of "The Garden on the Sea," a pure atmospheric novel, a cruel and sweet fable in which she portrays a young, handsome, rich couple who live under the silent gaze of the gardener. Mr. Francesc and Mrs. Rosamaria. A boat drops them off at this beautiful property, flowered for the summer. They come from Barcelona. Also here is the cook Quima, and Miranda, the maid, slender and sly as a snake, who makes faces at Feliu, the painter, and lets herself be courted by Sebastià.
Luxury and disenchantmentEveryone is watching Monsieur and Madame, the window of their mysterious room, their long walks by the sea, embracing. The air smells of magnolia flowers, marigolds, bouquets of grape hyacinths... We meet beautiful characters like the ghost of Cecilia, the gardener's wife, Eulàlia the will-o'-the-wisp, a bit naive... Little things will come to tarnish this beautiful garden above the Mediterranean: slightly disturbing guests, a house under construction, there, in the view that leads towards the horizon. Luxury and disenchantment recounted in a detached, evanescent, terribly sensual tone.
It was the Occitan poet, Bernard Lesfargues from Bergerac , who translated "La Place du diamant" (The Diamond Square) for Gallimard in 1971, a great love story set in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. Today, we are awaiting a reissue of "Mirror Broken," also translated by Lesfargues, in which Mercè Rodoreta evokes Bordeaux.
“Le Jardin sur la mer”, by Mercè Rodoreta , translated from Catalan by Edmond Raillard , ed. Zulma, 256 p., €21.50.
