UB Editions recovers the figure of the intellectual Joan Pérez-Jorba, who connected with the European avant-garde from Paris

Joan Pérez-Jorba (Barcelona, 1878 - Voutenay-sur-Cure, 1928), a literary and art critic, poet and publicist, settled in Paris in 1901 and never returned to Catalonia. In Paris, he maintained a close relationship with the most important figures of the historical avant-garde, a transnational phenomenon that manifested itself in a Europe beaten by the First World War. Itineraris d’avantguarda d’un català de París (1917-1920)  explains and exemplifies the work of “an author often quoted, but never sufficiently explored”, as Enric Bou writes in the book’s prologue. 

The volume presents an introductory study by Pilar García Sedas on the relevance of the figure of Pérez-Jorba in the cultural scene of the early 20th century. This is followed by a review of his journalistic work, which, written in three languages — Catalan, French and Spanish — and published in different newspapers and magazines, shows an open approach to the dissemination of the “new poetry” and the avant-garde “theatrical revolution”, as evidenced both in his interviews and literary chronicles and in his correspondence with leaders of the artistic renewal (Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Albert-Birot, Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, Philippe Soupault and Blaise Cendrars, among others). 

This book, which will be presented on Wednesday 5 February at 7 p.m. at the Laie bookshop (Carrer Pau Claris), is the latest addition to the Filologia UB – Biblioteca collection. Directed by Joan Santanach, it includes critical editions of literary texts in Romance and Greco-Latin languages that form the ground from which writings in Neo-Latin languages are derived. Some of the latest titles published are És aquí que fan comèdia? El teatre breu català a les darreries de l’edat moderna, by Anna Maria Villalonga, and Cartas (1949-1955). La filología románica en la postguerra by Isabel de Riquer. 

Joan Pérez-Jorba was a self-taught poet and literary and art critic. A leading militant of Catalan Modernisme, he fought against French symbolism and decadentism from the plains of Catalònia. He wrote for numerous Catalan newspapers, such as El Poble Català and La Publicitat, and founded the French-Catalan magazine L’Instant (1918-1919). In French, he contributed to the journals SIC and Anthologie Dada, where he worked on calligram and visual poetry. He is the author of the collections of poems Poemes (1913), Sang en rovell d’ou (1918) and Turmell i el boc en flames (1921). 

Pilar García Sedas (ed.) holds a PhD in Humanities, a degree in Philosophy and Arts and a degree in Catalan Philology. An art historian and literary critic, she contributes to several periodicals. As a researcher, she has specialized in the relations between literature and painting during Modernisme, Noucentisme and the historical avant-gardes through the work of Joaquín Torres-Garcia, Juan Pérez-Jorba, Rafael Barradas and Josep Maria de Sucre, as well as the artistic and literary movements of the Spanish and Latin American avant-garde and their relations with Catalonia.