Cultura

Literature, yes, but also diets, clothing, toothaches, money, dream interpretation, past and future encounters… For several years, from the sixties until her death, Mercè Rodoreda (Barcelona, 1908-Girona, 1983) wrote letters to some of the friends she had met while working at the Comissariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat during the war, now collected in Cartes a les amigues retrobades. From Republican Catalonia to Romanyà (Sidillà), edited by Anna Maria Saludes Amat and Araceli Bruch Pla.

The first solo exhibition of Salvador Dalí took place in 1925 at the Galerías Dalmau, the historic gallery on Passeig de Gràcia (previously it had been on Carrer del Pi and Portaferrissa) that was a beacon of the avant-garde and promoter of new artists. Dalí was one of them. He was 21 years old and showed works such as Girl at the Window, the portrait of his sister Anna Maria from behind, contemplating the seascape of Cadaqués, now at the Reina Sofía in Madrid. He repeated the following year. A century later, he returns to the stage where he first met success face to face with Dalí Boulevard Cibernético, an immersive experience that from next week will have a permanent space in Casa Amatller.

On July 23, 1962, Josep M. Castellet sent Camilo José Cela a brief letter in which he indicated that the work the Catalan critic was going to publish a few months later was about to be finalized: “I would appreciate it if you could let me know, by return mail, the corrections you pointed out to me in Formentor regarding the work I did on your work for Revista Hispánica Moderna. I haven’t asked you before because, as Susana Redondo de Feldman told me, the original has not yet gone to print and there is plenty of time to make them.”

The world moves relentlessly. One day you find yourself at coordinates that mark the gravitational center of what is interesting, revolutionary, advanced, artistically attractive, and suggestive, and another day you occupy, not without some committed distance, consistent with principles and perhaps disenchanted, a more remote place, on the margins of attention and debate.

There is not a minute to lose. There are ovations before which not even Penélope Cruz, who has experienced quite a few, can remain indifferent. “I’m amazed,” Pe says this Wednesday recalling the applause received in the Sala Grande of the Lido in Venice. Her team points out: “It was 15 minutes, right?”. She immediately corrects: “No, it was 16!”.

Elon Musk is well portrayed in the new documentary dedicated to him by Alex Gibney, which premiered this Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival. The Oscar-winning American documentarian—who won the statuette in 2008 for exposing the tortures by the U.S. military in Guantánamo or Afghanistan—has crafted a four-hour film that begins by focusing on the young and entrepreneurial Musk, the one who invents to save the planet, a great capitalist who does not allow himself to fail and who is willing to colonize Texas to carry out his particular space race. But the film ends by warning of the great danger the character currently poses, not only to the democracy of his country but on a global scale.

Starting the course is always a good opportunity to ask questions. The book sector constantly asks them and will put them on the table at the XI edition of the Forum Edita, which was inaugurated this Monday with a tribute to the editor Beatriz de Moura – who passed away last April – and will continue until next September 9.

“The three million is a consolidated figure, a good moment for theater, the best moment in history,” says Isabel Vidal, president of the theatrical companies of Catalonia (Adetca), at the conference presenting the data for the 25-26 season and the Catalunya aixeca el teló gala, which takes place on Monday night at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

The feeling here is that we are not facing the opening of just another museum, but that the opening of Faro Santander, the former headquarters of Banco de Santander now inhabited by Titian, Velázquez, Rubens, Tàpies, Cristina Iglesias, Frida Kahlo, or Leonora Carrington, is not only the culmination of one of the most ambitious projects of recent years, but the starting point of a transformation that will turn the Cantabrian capital into one of the most vibrant and unique cultural hubs in Spain. “We are part of what is about to come, we open the door to everything that follows,” says its director, Daniel Vega, who this Monday, after the inaugural event, was responsible for guiding King Felipe VI through the different spaces of the building renovated by architect and Pritzker Prize winner David Chipperfield: 10,000 square meters of cultural center with views of the bay and the Centro Botín by Renzo Piano, which since 2017 has marked the new direction of a city that is betting its future on art.

Love is one of the most beloved books by Theodor Kallifatides (Molaoi, Greece, 1938). However, it had never before been translated into either Spanish or Catalan. Starting September 16, thanks to Galaxia Gutenberg, readers of both languages will also be able to enjoy this contemporary classic that the author first published in Swedish in 1978. “I wrote it many years ago, but it still feels very heartfelt,” he confesses by phone to La Vanguardia days before this long-awaited publication arrives in bookstores. It is the first time he has spoken to a Spanish media outlet about the novel. “It is a book that I think ages well because, as far as love is concerned, for better or worse, human beings have not changed much, as we are still the same as in Greek tragedies,” he reflects. The novel follows Laki Sarris, a man about to turn forty, married to Lena and with a son, who falls madly in love with a woman much younger than him, Li. A relationship that will inevitably have dramatic consequences for his life.