Pla's stories are generally unadorned and precise in their renderings of both the people and the places of the far northeast of Spain, lives full of hardship and labor--but also their insistence on freedom. A fine introduction to a writer little known outside his native land and who memorably captures its atmosphere. --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

The grand old man of Catalan letters and one of Spain's most prolific writers.--Chicago Tribune

Josep Pla has long been considered one of the finest writers of autobiographical texts in any of the languages of Spain.--Hispanic Review

Considered one of the most influential Catalan authors of the twentieth century, [Pla] was born and raised in the Emporda, and over the course of his life wrote over 30,000 pages of prose in which he diligently catalogued the landscape and the life and habits of the people of the region. His complete works, published and republished over the years, contain marvelous descriptive passages that capture the landscape's history and its complex topography at once. --Words Without Borders

Josep Pla was a great noticer of things and places; his gaze was alert and dry; he wrote in a style which registered both the smallest detail and the large picture. His relationship to Catalan identity and Spanish history was complex, often ambiguous. His relationship, however, to the scene in front of him, or the days in which he lived, remains fascinating for its clarity, its sharpness, its originality and its wit. On display in his work is a glittering and sparkling sensibility. --Colm Tóibín
Biografía del autor
Josep Pla (1897-1981) was born in Palafrugell on the Costa Brava. After abandoning law for journalism, Pla moved to Paris to serve as the correspondent for the Spanish newspaper La Publicidad. Pla went on to cover current events from Russia, Rome, and London, as well as Berlin, where he reported on Mussolini's march on Rome and the collapse of the German economy. He returned to Madrid in 1927. Under the Franco regime, Pla was internally exiled to Palafrugell and his articles for the weekly review Destino were frequently censored.
About the Translator:
Peter Bush is an award-winning translator who lives in Oxford. Among his recent translations are Josep Pla's The Gray Notebook, which won the 2014 Ramon Llull Prize for Literary Translation, and Ramón del Valle-Inclán's Tyrant Banderas; Emili Teixidor's Black Bread, Jorge Carrión's Bookshops, and Prudenci Beltrana's Josafat.