Literary Reading Marathon. 75th Anniversary of the Republican Exile (1939-2014)

11th Edition of the Literary Reading Marathon

Friday, April 25, 2014 from 9h to 21h at the see of the Consell Comarcal de l'Alt Empordà

(Carrer Nou, 48 17600 Figueres)

Organised by:  Consell Comarcal de l'Alt Empordà and the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística. 

In collaboration with the Museu Memorial de l'Exili

75th Anniversary of the Republican Exile 1939-2014

Reading of Xavier Benguerel, Antoni Rovira i Virgili and M. Àngels Vayreda

-Xavier Benguerel, Els vençuts(The vanquished), Barcelona, Edicions de 1984, 2005 (the first edition of this book dates from 1955 under the title Els fugitius(The fugitives).

-Antoni Rovira i Virgili, Els darrers dies de la Catalunya republicana. Memòries sobre l'èxode català,(The last days of republican Catalonia. Memories of the Catalan exodus) Barcelona, A Contravent, 2014 (the first edition is from 1940, published in Buenos Aires)

-M. Àngels Vayreda, Encara no sé com sóc (I still don't know who I am) Barcelona, Club dels Novel·listes, 1970.

In all three books the landscape is the area of Griona, and more specifically, the zone of the Alt Empordà that limits with the border with France. The the book by M. Àngels Vayreda, Figueres and the Alt Empordà play an fundamental role. 

These three works are an essencial testimony to feel and value how transcendental it was for our country the Republican exile. The drama and the fracture that ravaged the country after the defeat of the Republic are described with precision in all three narratives. The emotion of crossing the border, the chaos of the Republlican troops in retreat, the collapse of the institutions, the hard and fragil life of the refugees in France and, in particular, in the concentration camps, the disorientation and the longing for home, as results of the exile are some of the matters that are considered with literary matery in the three works we propose.