Lluís Grifell Pons (Manresa, 1925), who was born into a family of shopkeepers, completed his primary and secondary education in Manresa. In his early youth, he took his first literary steps with a musical comedy and a novel, neither of which he finished. After the Civil War he completed his training in commerce and business studies while also working in the family business. He then worked as a salesman with products of the company Magatzems Tarragona and travelled around Catalonia, Andorra, and the province of Valencia. Then, in 1973, after some years managing the Manresa company Mobles Tarragona, he and a partner decided to establish an aluminium business, which he managed until the age of seventy-five.

In his last years as a businessman, and especially shortly before he retired, he began a period of research and writing, as a result of which he published eight titles, notable amongst which are Sants i mites de Catalunya (1993-2000, in three volumes), Petites històries per matar el temps (2003), and Memòries i aventures d’un temps i un país. Catalunya 1930-1950 (2009). He has been active in the cultural life of Bages where, for example, he has contributed articles to the bulletins of the Bages association, Friends of Romanesque Art.

His work as a whole is notable for his research into the heritage, folktales, and legends of Catalonia, as well as autobiographical and eye-witness accounts of periods, and experiences of a people and a language, all of which he stores as treasures in his memory and puts into writing before time and oblivion erase them.

He is an honorary member of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan Language Writers).
 

Web page: Elena Ferrer Moregó.
Documentation: Author’s personal files.
Photograph: AELC and author’s personal files.
Translation: Julie Wark.