1926 stay<\/h2>\n
![\"](\"https:\/\/cedgkchesterton.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/chesterton-a-catalunya-E-C-Ricart.jpg\")
J. M. Junoy i G. K. Chesterton (E. C. Ricart)<\/p>\n
Chesterton\u2019s first stay in Catalonia took place in May and early June 1926, to the invitation of the Catalan section of the PEN club, accompanied by his wife and his niece, Rodha Bastable and hosted by the poet and writer Josep M. Junoy. Chesterton stayed at the Hotel Majestic on the Passeig de Gr\u00e0cia and was very well received by the press and the local writers, who paid tribute to him in a dinner at the Hotel Ritz. While they were dining, Josep M. de Sagarra drew a brilliant portrait of him. Chesterton gave a lecture at the Literary University of Barcelona; was often seen walking down the Rambla, always with a bunch of newspapers under his arm; and he visited the Ateneu Barcelon\u00e8s and the American Library on the old passage of La Virreina. He took the opportunity to have a brief stay in Sitges and to visit Vilanova i la Geltr\u00fa and Tarragona.<\/p>\n
Period in between visits (1926-1935)<\/h2>\n
It was during these years when Chesterton\u2019s outreach in Catalonia was greater, as a result, in part, of his first stay. With the encouragement of Josep M. Junoy \u2013host of his first visit\u2013 and counting on the active participation of Pau Romeva, a campaign towards \u201cchestertonization\u201d is undertaken from the pages of La Nova Revista,<\/em> through a section in the magazine dedicated to the \u201cAmics de Chesterton\u201d (\u201cFriends of Chesterton\u201d) and the project of translating his works into Catalan. The Catholic newspaper El Mat\u00ed<\/em>, in which Pau Romeva circulated Chesterton\u2019s social doctrine of distributism, carried on with this task. The Everlasting Man<\/em> (L\u2019home perdurable<\/em>, translated by Mari\u00e0 Manent in 1927), Heretics<\/em> (Her\u00e8tics<\/em>, 1928) and What\u2019s Wrong with the World<\/em> (All\u00f2 que no est\u00e0 b\u00e9<\/em>, 1929), translated by Pau Romeva, were published in Catalan. To pay tribute to him after his death in 1936, The Man Who Was Thursday<\/em> was serialised in Revista de Catalunya<\/em> and then published in the Quaderns Literaris<\/em> (translated by Pau Romeva). The outbreak of the civil war and the Francoist dictatorship put an end to the project of dissemination of Chesterton\u2019s work in Catalan.<\/p>\n Chesterton\u2019s second stay in Sitges took place in the spring of 1935. Chesterton had to attend a lecture during the Maggio Florentino, in Tuscany\u2019s capital. Frances and Gilbert took advantage of the trip by car, which was driven by Dorothy Collins, to relax for a few days on the Catalan coast. After crossing the border and passing through Girona and then Barcelona, they decided to settle in Sitges. They stayed at the former Hotel Subur. The sunny Mediterranean climate helped Frances\u2019s fragile health and Gilbert had the opportunity to take a break from his work as director of G. K.\u2019s Weekly<\/em>, his press contributions and his numerous public commitments. They resumed their trip to Italy via the French C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur.<\/p>\n During the dictatorship the editions in Spanish of Chesterton\u2019s work were resumed thanks to the effort of Josep Jan\u00e9s, who published in \u201cLos cl\u00e1sicos del siglo XX\u201d (\u201cThe classics of the 20th<\/sup> century\u201d) the Obras Completas<\/em> (Complete Works<\/em>) in one volume (in fact it was a selection of works, carried out with the help of several translators). Under the pseudonym Ram\u00f3n Setant\u00ed, Maurici Serrahima published a wonderful selection of Chesterton texts in 1941, also in Jan\u00e9s (\u201cLas Quintaesencias\u201d), preceded by an introduction in which he glosses Chesterton\u2019s figure, thinking and stimulating style and the organic character of his work. In 1974, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the psychiatrist D\u00eddac Parellada published a Recordatori a Chesterton<\/em> (Memorial of Chesterton<\/em>, in P\u00f2rtic, with a preface by Octavi Saltor) and Jordi Gal\u00ed published El comprom\u00eds pol\u00edtic dels germans Chesterton<\/em> (The political commitment of the Chesterton brothers<\/em>, Nova Terra).<\/p>\n The translation of Chesterton\u2019s works, especially into Spanish, has increased substantially during this period on the initiative of Jaume Vallcorba, who has published in Acantilado his non-fiction work, starting with the Autobiograf\u00eda<\/em> (Autobiography<\/em>, translated by Olivia de Miguel; 2005 \u00c1ngel Crespo Prize in translation), of which eight editions have been published so far; Pau Romeva\u2019s translation of L\u2019Home que fou dijous<\/em> (The Man Who Was Thursday<\/em>, 2005) was recovered for Quaderns Crema. Other Catalan and Valencian publishers have joined in the popularization of his fiction work (Bromera, Laertes) and essays (Pag\u00e8s; Viena-Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Maragall has published a selection of texts), up to the recent publication of Chesterton\u2019s first known novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill<\/em> (Univers, 2019; translated by Josep Pelfort with a preface by David Fern\u00e0ndez).<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chesterton in Catalonia Gilbert and Frances stayed twice in Catalonia: the first time in May 1926 and the second one in 1935, also during the spring. Period before his 1926 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1284,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1339","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n1935 stay<\/h2>\n
Civil war and Francoist dictatorship (1936-1976)<\/h2>\n
From the transition to democracy onwards (1975-2019)<\/h2>\n