Ofèlia Dracs was a literary collective of

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

writers. Set up in 1976 or 1977, the name originates from the initials of the surnames of its founders:

Miquel Desclot Miquel Creus i Muñoz ''alias'' Miquel Desclot (Barcelona, 1952) is a Spanish writer and translator known for his Catalan language, Catalan translations of works by Dante Alighieri, Dante, Francesco Petrarca, Petrarca or Michelangelo Buonarroti. H ...

, Carles Reig, Josep Albanell,

Jaume Cabré Jaume Cabré i Fabré (; born 1947) is a Catalan philologist, novelist and screenwriter. He was one of the founders of the Catalan literary collective, '' Ofèlia Dracs''. He was born in Terrassa. He graduated in Catalan Philology from the Univ ...

and Joaquim Soler; it also included

Jaume Fuster Jaume (, ) is a Catalan male given name. It is the equivalent of James. Notable people Notable people with this given name include: * Jaume Aragall (born 1939), Spanish tenor * Jaume Balagueró (born 1968), Spanish filmmaker * Jaume Balmes (birth n ...

Xavier Romeu Xavier Romeu Matta is a counselor and litigator, with expertise in securities litigation and regulation, and corporate, commercial and employment litigation. He is a former politician, and an advocate of statehood for Puerto Rico, and of the appoin ...

and

Maria Antònia Oliver Cabrer Maria Antònia Oliver Cabrer (4 December 1946 – 10 February 2022) was a Spanish writer. Her work has been translated into German, English, Spanish, Galician, French, Portuguese, and Russian. She was honored with the Premi d'Honor de les Lletr ...

. The collective circled around a nucleus of authors. Including the founders, these were Joan Rendé, Joaquim Carbó, Vicenç Villatoro, Margarida Aritzeta, and Isidre Grau. There were occasional contributors (

Quim Monzó Joaquim Monzó i Gómez (born 15 March 1952), also known as Quim Monzó (), is a contemporary Spanish writer of novels, short stories and discursive prose, mostly in Catalan. In the early 1970s, Monzó reported from Vietnam, Cambodia, Northern Ir ...

, Josep Maria Illa,

Carme Riera Carme Riera Guilera (; born 12 January 1948) is a novelist and essayist. She has also written short stories, scripts for radio and television and literary criticism. She holds a doctorate in Hispanic Philology and is a professor of Spanish liter ...

, Joana Escobedo in the early years; Assumpció Cantalozella and Roser Vernet joined in the latter period). After the group's failed first work, Desclot and Reig departed it. Hoping to reach a new readership in the Catalan language, the group published genre literature, particularly

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

erotica Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use a ...

, as well as a book of

gastronomy Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating. One who is well versed in gastr ...

, arguing that

Catalan literature Catalan literature is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The focus of this article is not just the literature of Catalonia, but literature written in Catalan from anywhere, so that it includes writ ...

had the same right to a complete range of narratives as other languages. Furthermore, they resisted assimilation into the cultural 'normalisation' demanded under the

Franco regime Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...

; instead, they were ''feminist, socialist and separatist''. In the collections of Dracs, the writers were anonymous and would later be revealed only when their works reappeared in their own named publications. ''Deu pometes té el pomer'' (''Ten little apples has the apple tree'') was the first publication of the collective. The book of erotic stories won the ''Premi La Sonrisa Vertical'' (''Vertical Smile Prize'') in 1980. The collection of detective stories ''Negra i consentida'' (1983) comprised works both by authors who had previously published in the genre as well as first-time crime story writers, such as Antoni Serra and Maria Antònia Oliver Cabrer, and provided scope for their various interpretations of the genre.

Selected works

* (Genre: erotica) * (Genre: horror) * (Genre: crime) * (Genre: science fiction) * (Theme: gastronomy) * (Genre: crime)

References

Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dracs, Ofelia Cultural history of Spain Culture in Barcelona Literary circles