The Instituto Cervantes in Manchester presents the series “Talks on Contemporary Catalan Literature”, coordinated by writer Xavier Mas Craviotto to explore the new way of Catalan literature. This first session will be dedicated to the work of writer and translator Carlota Gurt, providing a space for dialogue and reflection on her literary background and works.

Carlota Gurt (Barcelona, 1976) is a translator and writer. She studied Translation and Interpreting, Humanities, Business Studies, East Asian Studies and Audiovisual Communication. Between 1998 and 2010, she worked in the performing arts. Subsequently, she made the leap to the world of translation. For five years she worked in theatrical surtitling and corporate translation. She now focuses on editorial translation, mainly novels, from German and English into Catalan. Carlota Gurt has published three works of fiction, originally written in Catalan. In 2019 she won the Mercè Rodoreda Prize with her first book, the short story collection Cabalgar toda la noche (Navona). In 2020, she published Sola (Libros del Asteroide), her first novel, and in 2023 the book of short stories Biografía del fuego (Libros del Asteroide). With an impetuous and very visual prose, the author draws a literary universe of her own and full of strength. Some of her works have been translated into English, Italian and Greek.

Xavier Mas Craviotto (Navàs, 1996) studied Catalan Philology and a postgraduate degree in Linguistic Consultancy and Editorial Services at the University of Barcelona. For four years, he taught Catalan language and culture at the University of Bristol, UK. He is co-founder of Com ho diria, a digital platform specializing in Catalan slang for young people, and is a member of the board of directors of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC). He has been the youngest writer so far to win the Documenta Narrative Prize, the year 2018, for the novel La mort lenta (2019), and a few years later he published his second novel, La pell del món (2023). He is also the author of the poetry collections Renills de cavall negre (2019), with which he was the first winner of the Certamen Art Jove Salvador Iborra 2018, La gran nàusea (2021) and La llum subterrània (2023), which won him the Ausiàs March Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for poetry in Catalan. In the field of linguistic dissemination, he is co-author of (2023), an essay on youth slang and colloquial Catalan. He has published stories in collective anthologies and in several newspapers such as La Vanguardia, Diari ARA or Regió 7, and has participated in media and literary events in the Catalan-speaking territories and also abroad, such as the United Kingdom or Panama.

Online Event

In English