From the beginnings to the Renaixença
The origins of the settlement of Ibiza are epic and turbulent to say the least. Although it is estimated that human presence dates back to 5,000 BC, it is difficult to get a precise and chronological idea of the arrival of its first inhabitants. Nevertheless, Ibiza is undoubtedly an island, and therefore an ideal maritime crossroads to offer sailors a welcome stopover. This probably explains why it first appeared in geographical and historical works, such as those by Diodorus of Sicily or Plutarch, and why the first author associated with it - although he was not born there, he died there in 1336 - was himself a ship's captain. Ramon Muntaner was born in 1265 in Peralada, in the province of Girona. Having joined the Company of the Almogavres, after having taken part in numerous battles - 32, if we are to believe his own words, on land and at sea - he seemed to give in to the charms of the archipelago when he took part in the conquest of Menorca in 1286, since he decided to become a citizen of Majorca. He will take the maritime road again - and will be used in particular as guardian angel to the son of the infant Ferran thanks to surprising circumstances! - and then returned to the Balearic Islands at the time of retirement. It was at this time that he began to write his Chronicles, which could be described as Memoirs, including the one that bears his name and which is readily associated with the corpus known as the Four Great Chronicles. Together with the writings of James I, Bernat Desclot and Peter the Ceremonious, this collection - which uses Catalan as a common language - is considered a priceless asset, as it is a historiographical document on medieval Europe without equal. Anacharsis, a beautiful publishing house based in Toulouse, has had the delightful idea of translating and publishing part of Ramon Muntaner's work, the one that recounts the expedition of the Company of the Almogavres to the East, which he joined from 1303 to 1308. Its literary qualities are undeniable.
It seems that the following centuries did not give writers the peaceful time they needed to write, as the island suffered endless famines, shortages and repeated attacks. Emigration emptied Ibiza of its inhabitants and the decline seemed endless. However, in the middle of the 19th century, a literary movement emerged, in the tradition of Romanticism but of Catalan origin, the Renaixença, which flourished during the second half of the century and to which at least four writers born in Ibiza joined: Felip Curtoys i Valls (1838-1916), Pere Escanellas Suñer (1852-1936), Jacint Aquenza i Loaiza (1855-1907) and Josep Clapés i Juan (1864-1916). It must be said that if this "renaissance" was possible, it was because the island, which had been deprived of everything for so long and had been reduced to living in great poverty, was gradually improving its condition. This evolution is confirmed by the creation of a local newspaper - El Ebusitano - in 1948 and the installation of a printing press the same year, but also by the foundation of a secondary school in 1865, where the playwright - political and Catalan! - Ramon Bordas i Estraguès (1837-1907), who found inspiration for at least one of his plays, La Pagesia d'Eivissa, on the island. Our four writers will benefit from these improvements, especially that of the press, which offers them its columns. Thus, Felip Curtoys i Valls was first and foremost noted for his journalistic prose, although he also tried his hand at poetry(Retrato al daguerrotipo) and writing short stories(La Credencial, El Gabán verde, Impresiones de aldea). In the same way, Pere Escanellas i Suñer improvised himself as editor and in 1874, together with Joan Mayans i Marí, created the periodical El Ibencio, while writing poems, both in Catalan and in Spanish, the latter being the one that is remembered (El1er de Junio). He also wrote a treatise on the geography of his island. His contemporary, Jacint Aquenza i Loiaiza, is the one who gained the greatest fame, starting with the publication in 1873 in Almanaque Balear of A Ibiza. He continued to publish his prose in different titles, but he also became a collector of oral tradition with Cuentos de mi abuela : leyendas de Ibiza (1875), a work that would resonate with that of Josep Clapés i Juan, who, in addition to his multiple hats as a soldier-journalist-writer, would be interested in the history of his native island(Los archivos de Ibiza). Among this first generation of men of letters (to which a woman, Victorina Ferrer Saldanya, belonged, but unfortunately her manuscript Tradiciones y leyendas de Ibiza has disappeared!), we could also mention Josep Puget Corrons (1840-1901), who grew up in Ibiza but moved to Cuba with his family at the end of his adolescence. A pharmacist and doctor, he turned away from the scientific path from time to time to explore the literary path, notably by writing comic plays(Morir dos veces, Hablarse y no entenderse) that were the delight of Havana's parties.
A teeming 20th century... and wars
At the dawn of the new century, the time is no longer for (re)birth but for vivacity. Several periodicals were created, literature was discussed in clubs, and it was not unusual to come across Isidor Macabich (1883-1973), who - in addition to his busy ecclesiastical duties - found the time to take full advantage of this effervescence, and even to initiate it. From him remained a dictionary of Catalan-Valencian-Balear and, above all, poems - in Castilian and Catalan, the latter perhaps less perfect stylistically, but undoubtedly closer to his daily life, better anchored in his land - that he did not stop compiling and recompiling before obtaining a (nearly definitive) collection in 1950: De mi vida. Isidor Macabich was the first person to publish outside his country, since Dialectals was published in Barcelona in 1933, thus paving the way for Jordi Juan i Riquer (1905-1989), who wrote the first Iberian novel in Catalan, Metges... o traficants? (published in Barcelona in 1937), a work that caused some controversy.
The lyrical Francesc Vilàs and the mayor-poet Alexandre Llobet i Ferrer also made a name for themselves, but Cosme Vidal Lláser (1912-1982) is the most important, because in addition to excelling in the difficult art of the short story, he also wrote a novel with great psychological finesse(Islas para una historia, Armengot Prize 1978). His youngest son, Marià Villangómez Llobet, born in 1913, was one of those who experienced the war that took him away from his island for many years. His book L'Any en estampes, which is dedicated to him, has become a great classic of Catalan literature, and his poetry will also receive the Serra d'Or Prize in 1987. Enric Fajarnés Cardona is also known for his texts that use Ibiza as a source of inspiration, to the point that he becomes one of the best intimate memoirists(Viaje a Ibiza, 1958; La Ibiza de nustro tiempo, 1978; Lo que Ibiza me inspiró, 1985). He was also a poet, maintaining a certain classicism, from Primer Cancionero (1945) to Viejos y nuevos (1991), unlike Frances J. Mayans i Jofre, born in 1921, who came close to surrealism. Finally, Josep Manuel Cardona Montero - who, although he had moved around a lot since his youth, remained very attached to Ibiza, where he was born in 1928 - gave his verses a social and even political coloring, which was not at odds with his clandestine struggle against Franco. At the end of a 30-year French exile, he returned to his island and was honored to be the only Ibizan, along with Mayans, to be published in the post-war collection Adonais de poesia.
The war - but perhaps the plural should be used - changed the literary landscape of Ibiza, so that the next generation was not necessarily born there, which does not prevent a strong attachment. Thus, Antonio Colinas, a native of León, lived in Ibiza from 1977 to 1998 and was largely inspired by it in his work, which earned him the National Poetry Prize in 1982. The Madrid-born Maria de los Llanos Lozano also moved to the archipelago and also wrote poetry, as did Julio Herranz - born in Rota in 1948 - and José Luciano Ruiz - who was born in San Sebastian in 1950 and published Mar nupcial in the purely surrealist vein. However, two native Ibizans have made their mark: Mariano Planells, a journalist and columnist, and Vicente Valero, a poet and biographer who devoted a study to the Iberian sojourns of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin in 1932 and 1933. For this presentation would not be complete without mentioning all the writers who have over the decades visited the island for more or less time, such as Albert Camus, Jacques Prévert, Cees Nooteboom, Hugo Claus, Harry Mulisch, Tristan Tzara or Emil Cioran. Walter Benjamin is certainly the one who left the deepest mark there, because it was there that he found relative peace, even though the future of his country was worrying him, there that he wrote some texts, autobiographical and political, to be discovered in French under the title Récits d'Ibiza (Stories from Ibiza ) published by Riveneuve, and there that he began the exile that would only end at the time of his suicide, seven years later.
Maritime crossroads, Ibiza is as much a point of arrival as of departure, and this mixing is at the very heart of his literature, far from the trivialities that would evoke an endless party. Today, there are fewer writers who stand out, which does not mean that its letters are not alive, as evidenced by the literary groups - such as Desfauste in 1992 or Grupo Cero more recently - that are formed and reformed. Nevertheless, the young generation is represented by José Morella, born in 1972, who made a name for himself with his first novel Asuntos proprios and received the 2019 Café Gijón Prize for West End, with autobiographical notes. In fact, he talks about his grandfather, Nicomedes, suffering from a mental illness, who would end his life reclusive while the 70s saw hordes of hippies arrive. Finally, we should mention Ben Clark, a young English-born Ibizian who has received several awards and grants for his poetry, and first became known on social networks with The Ultimate end of (bad) literature, a poem that has been retold and modified more than 250,000 times in seven years.
