Joaquim Riera i Bertran
1848–1924
Biography
Joaquim Riera i Bertran was a Catalan politician and writer, born in Girona in January 1848 and died in Barcelona in March 1924. He studied law at the University of Barcelona and worked for a time as a judge in Girona. He joined the federal party led by Francesc Pi i Margall and stood for the Spanish general election of 1869 without success. In 1873, when he was about twenty-five, he was elected mayor of Girona. He left that post in 1876 to become secretary of the Barcelona provincial council.
He was one of the writers of the Renaixença, the nineteenth-century revival of Catalan culture, and he was prolific, above all as a writer of romantic and festive drama. He won prizes at the Jocs Florals in Barcelona, helped found the youth society Jove Catalunya in 1870, and was a friend of the novelist Narcís Oller. In 1885 he was among the founders of the Associació d'Autors Catalans, which aimed to promote Catalan theatre. He later presided over the Unió Catalanista, and in 1890 he was named a Mestre en Gai Saber, a distinction the Jocs Florals gave to distinguished poets. He also wrote sentimental and romantic verse.
The book on this site is Escenas de la vida pagesa, whose title promises scenes from rural Catalan life. It turns to the countryside rather than the stage, and it offers a different way into a writer who helped shape the cultural life of his generation.
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Books
Escenas de la vida pagesa
by Joaquim Riera i Bertran
Thirteen scenes and tales of country life by Joaquim Riera i Bertran, from a village mill and a mayor's dining room to popular and historical legends. Quarrels, slanders, farewells and a sardana player's memoirs show Catalan peasant life in the late nineteenth century.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.