Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
» Tuning Up At Dawn(2004) andBread and Oil: Majorcan Culture's Last Stand
(2006), by Robert Graves' son, Tomás.
» Wild Olives: Life in Majorca With Robert Graves(2001), by William Graves.
» Un Hiver à Mallorque(A Winter in Mallorca, 1839), by the 19th-century French
novelist George Sand (actually Amandine-Aurore-Lucille Dupin).
» Jogging Around Mallorca(1929), by Gordon West.
» British Travellers in Mallorca in the Nineteenth Century(2006), edited by Brian J
Dendle and Shelby Thacker.
» Letters From Mallorca(1887), by Charles W Wood.
» Die Insel des Zweiten Gesichts(The Island of the Second Vision, 1953), by Ger-
man writer Albert Vigoleis Thelen (1903-89).
The Early Centuries
In one sense Mallorcan literature began with the island's medieval conqueror, Jaume I
(1208-76), who recorded his daring deeds in El Llibre dels Fets (The topic of Deeds).
He wrote in Catalan, a language that the Palma-born poet and visionary evangeliser Ra-
mon Llull (1232-1316) would elevate to a powerful literary tool. A controversial figure,
who many feel should be declared a saint (he has only made it to beatification), Llull has
long been regarded as the father of the literary Catalan tongue.
Few Mallorquins grapple with Llull's medieval texts but most know at least one poem
by Miquel Costa i Llobera (1854-1922), a theologian and poet. His El Pi de Fomentor
(The Formentor Pinetree, 1907), which eulogises Mallorcan landscapes through a pine
on the Formentor peninsula, is the Mallorcan poem.
The 20th Century
One of the island's greatest poets was the reclusive Miquel Bauça (1940-2005). His Una
Bella Història (1962-85) is a major anthology. Llorenç Villalonga (1897-1980), born in-
to an elite Palma family and trained in medicine, was one of Mallorca's top 20th-century
novelists. Many of his works, including his most successful novel, Bearn (1952), portray
the decay of the island's landed nobility.
Baltasar Porcel (b 1937, Andratx) is the doyen of contemporary Mallorcan literature.
L'Emperador o l'Ull del Vent (The Emperor or the Eye of the Wind, 2001) is a dramatic
tale about the imprisonment of thousands of Napoleon's soldiers on Illa de Cabrera.
 
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