UB Editions publishes the reference work for the study of the Catalan Contemporary literature

University of Barcelona Editions and the Publications Service of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona publish the first two volumes of the series Literatura Catalana de la Postmodernitat (Postmodern Catalan Literature), the first general history of Catalan literature produced between the 1960s and the present day. This reference work provides a solid foundation for understanding the literary output of our contemporary authors and, for the first time, places Catalan literary studies from this period in an international context. It presents the main debates and processes of change, development and in variation of one of the most fruitful periods — which began, symbolically, in 1968. In the introduction, the co-editors — Jordi Marrugat, Víctor Martínez, and Núria Santamaria — set out the intention of this piece: “We do not know what divisions and interpretations of the past the future will make, but what we propose is to look at current debates and aesthetics from the aesthetics that emerged after the modern movement and that we continue to encounter in our daily lives.” 

Written by more than 50 experts, the book is organized into seven parts distributed across two volumes. The first, Transformacions, marcs i gèneres narratius, analyses how postmodern Catalan literature is built, both in terms of creation and the establishment of an institutional network that responds to the new cultural context, domestic and international, and then studies narrative genres. The second, Gèneres de no-ficció, poesia, literatura dramàtica, experimentalisme i recepció, deals with non-fiction, poetry, drama, experimentalism and the main episodes of reception and translation of foreign literature into Catalan. 

Jordi Marrugat holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies from the University of Sheffield and in Catalan Philology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. A professor at the University of Barcelona and co-editor of the journal Els Marges, he co-edited two volumes of the new Història de la literatura catalana (2020-2022). In addition to articles and reviews on postmodern authors, he has written overviews of the literature of this period (in UB Editions he published Narrativa catalana de la postmodernitat in 2014). 

Víctor Martínez is a professor of Catalan Philology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. A specialist in contemporary literature, he has participated in the coordination of the critical edition of the complete works of Salvador Espriu. He has also devoted himself to the study of literary relations between Catalonia and Portugal with books such as El naixement de l’iberisme catalanista (1997) and translations of Portuguese authors. He is the editor, among others, of the compilations Narracions extraordinàries (2017), by Joan Santamaria, and Una terra, més enllà: històries catalanes de ciència-ficció durant la guerra freda i el franquisme (2023). 

Núria Santamaria is a professor at the Department of Catalan Philology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has conducted research in the field of 20th- and 21st-century performing arts, both nationally (studying authors and phenomena such as Joaquim Montero, Josep M. Millàs-Raurell, Josep M. de Sagarra, Joan Brossa, the popular theatre of the Paral·lel and post-war theatre) and internationally (studying figures such as Samuel Beckett and Josephine Baker). She has worked as a theatre critic for L’Avenç.