Vicenç Pagès Jordà (Figueres, 1963 – Torrella de Montgrí, 2022) was a writer, teacher, and literary critic.

He made his literary debut in 1990 with the short story collection Cercles d’infinites combinacions. This was followed by the novels El món d’Horaci (1995 – reissued in a revised version in 2016), Carta a la reina d’Anglaterra (1997), La felicitat no és completa (2003), Els jugadors de whist (2009), Dies de frontera (2014), and Robinson (2017); the short story collections, En companyia de l’altre (1999), El poeta i altres contes (2005); and the compilation Exorcismes (2018). Notable, too, is his essay on writing, Un tramvia anomenat text (1998), and other works like De Robinson Crusoe a Peter Pan. Un cànon de literatura juvenil (2006), Clàssics revisitats (2018), Memòria vintage (2020), and Kennedyana (2022).

As a writer, he was known for experimentation in his texts and his fragmentary storytelling style, both of which, together with his classical training and a robust construction of reality and of his subject, shaped a singular universe. Moreover, his works always conveyed good doses of humour and irony. With every book, he was always testing himself, sometimes presenting the reader with a novel-essay, or a dictionary of a generation, or a centripetal story.

Among the awards he received were the National Prize for Culture, the Crexells Prize, the Sant Jordi (St George) Prize for the Novel, the Mercè Rodoreda Short Story Prize, and the Serra d’Or Critics’ Prize for the Essay. His works have been translated into Spanish, Slovenian, and French. 

Vicenç Pagès Jordà was a lecturer at the Ramon Llull University and the Aula d’Escriptura (Writing School) of Girona. He wrote for the media outlets Diari de Barcelona, Avui, L'Avenç, Revista de Girona, El Periódico, El Punt Avui, Presència, and La República.

Web page: Sara Serrano Valenzuela for AELC.
Documentation: Family files.
Cover photograph: © Josep Anton Rojas Diago (2021).
​​​​​​​Translation: Julie Wark.