Catalan Review

Abstract

The massive emigration of people from villages, towns, and small cities to the metropolis of Barcelona in the 1960s has constituted the primary motivation for my writing. In the fol1owing article, I reflect on the various meanings that movement to the Catalan capital has for the characters in three of my novels: Pedra de tartera, Càmfora, and Carrer Bolívia. The city becomes a home and a dream; it becomes a site of anonymity full of challenges and promises; it becomes, in short, a test of adaptation. There is no real return to the point of departure, only the transformation of the individual citizen and of the urban body.