http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910395284/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007EUGDGE/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/842974200X/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8429767320/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2707107344/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8499306314/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8429738215/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0852150660/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1564787729/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J5RASR8/?tag=2022091-20
Salvador Espriu was born on July 10, 1913 in Santa Coloma de Farners, Catalonia, Spain. Son of Francesc Espriu i Torres and Escolastica Castello i Molas de Espriu. He spent his childhood between his home town, Barcelona, and Arenys de Mar, a village on the Maresme coast. At the age of sixteen, he published his first book "Israel", written in Spanish.
In 1930 Salvador entered the University of Barcelona, where he studied law and ancient history. He earned law degree and licentiate in c.1934.
While traveling (1933) to Egypt, Greece and Palestine, he became acquainted with the countries that originated the great classical myths, and which would be so influential in his work. During the Spanish civil war he was mobilised and served in military accounting. In 1931 he published "El doctor Rip" and the following year "Laia" novels. He worked as a lawyer between 1940 and 1960 He died in Barcelona in 1985, and was buried in the Arenys de Mar cemetery, which gives name to his poem "Cementiri de Sinera".
Translated into several languages, Espriu's work has obtained international recognition, most notably the Montaigne prize (1971). He was also given the Award of Honour of Catalan Letters (1972), the Ignasi Iglesias prize (1980), the City of Barcelona Prize (1982) and the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya (1982). He was awarded honorary doctor's degrees by the universities of Toulouse and Barcelona.
Espriu generically described his work as a "meditation on death". Actually, Espriu proposes to assume the literary tradition of humanity in a personal re-creation situated in a specific geographical and historical context, Catalonia after the defeat of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish civil war, of which he sings its failings and hope. Perhaps the most important virtue and originality of Espriu has been his capacity to reconcile, in the same unitary work, the spiritual problems of man, with metaphysical resonances, with his fate as a member of a group subjected to social and political tensions, while posing the great questions of justice and liberty.
He was a member of International Association for the Defense of Threatened Cultures and Languages (president).
Quotes from others about the person
Harold Bloom: "Espriu was an extraordinary poet by any international standard. The Nobel committee is guilty of many errors, and one of those was not to have given the prize to Salvador Espriu. I believe he deserved it".
