Death in Spring (15 page)

Mercè Rodoreda (1908–1983) is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Rodoreda began writing short stories as an escape from an unhappy early marriage, and in the early 1930s she began publishing political articles and wrote four early novels. Exiled in France and Switzerland following the Spanish Civil War, Rodoreda began writing the novels and short stories—
Twenty-two Short Stories
,
The Time of the Doves
,
Camellia Street
,
Garden by the Sea
—that would eventually make her internationally famous, while at the same time earning a living as a seamstress. In the mid-1960s she returned to Catalonia, where she continued to write.
Death in Spring
was published posthumously, and is translated into English for the first time here.

Martha Tennent was born in the United States, but has lived most of her life in Barcelona, receiving her B.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Barcelona, and serving as the founding dean of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vic. She has regularly translated between Spanish, Catalan, and English, and recently edited
Training for the New Millennium: Pedagogies for Translating and Interpreting
. Her translations have appeared in
Two Lines
,
Words Without Borders
,
eXchanges
, and
Review of Contemporary Fiction
.

Open Letter—the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press—is one of only a handful of publishing houses dedicated to increasing access to world literature for English readers. Publishing twelve titles in translation each year, Open Letter searches for works that are extraordinary and influential, works that we hope will become the classics of tomorrow.

Making world literature available in English is crucial to opening our cultural borders, and its availability plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant book culture. Open Letter strives to cultivate an audience for these works by helping readers discover imaginative, stunning works of fiction and by creating a constellation of international writing that is engaging, stimulating, and enduring.

Current and forthcoming titles from Open Letter include works from France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Russia, and numerous other countries.

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