Ester Xargay Melero (Sant Feliu de Guíxols, 1960 – Palamós, 2024), a poet and visual artist, was raised and educated until she was eighteen in Paris where she moved in avant-garde circles because of her association with the centre for artistic experimentation Maison de la Culture de Bourges. After returning to Catalonia, Xargay graduated in History of Art from the University of Barcelona. In Barcelona, too, she met the writer Carles Hac Mor, who was to become her artistic and sentimental partner.

Xargay mainly wrote poetry in all its expressive forms, as well as exhibiting in a range of centres and institutions, participating in numerous festivals, and publishing plaquettes (among them, Els àngels soterrats, 1990, Les flaires del galliner, 1993, and Ainalar, 2005), poetry collections (Darrere les tanques, 2000, Trenca-sons, 2002, Salflorvatge, 2006, Aürt, 2009, Infinitius, 2017, Desintegrar-se, 2019, and others), plays (Tirant lo Blanc la o La perfecció és feixista o La construcció del socialisme, 2000), and fiction (Carabassa a tot drap o Amor lliure, ús i abús, 2001, which she wrote with Carles Hac Mor).

With her interdisciplinary interests, she worked creatively in the sound and audiovisual domains, and also with performances and happenings. Moreover, she was a cultural activist and manager, wrote for media outlets, and translated from French. For years, she was chief programmer of the Barcelona Poetry Festival and of the recital series Poetry in Parks, which took place in the natural parks administered by the Barcelona Provincial Council. After 2020 she was director of La Pahissa del Marquet-Arts-Lletres-Natura Cultural Centre.

In 2025, after Xargay’s death in 2024, the Juneda Municipal Council and the Ponent Centre for Arts and memory created the Ester Xargay Award for Video-poetry in her memory.

She was a member of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (Association of Catalan Language Writers – AELC).

Web page: Cinta Paloma for AELC.
Documentation: A un revolt de la sendera (2021), edited by Caterina Riba and Jaume Coll Mariné.
Photographs: AELC / Carme Esteve.
Translation: Julie Wark.