Sales, Joan, 1912-1983

Joan Sales i Vallès (Barcelona, 1912-1983). Writer, translator and publisher. He studied Law at the University of Barcelona and he combined his studies with work as a proofreader at La nau. He was involved in founding the Catalan Communist Party. During the Civil War, he graduated from the War College and was made an officer. He was sent to the front in Madrid and Aragon. He made friends with the poet, Marius Torres, to whom he wrote frequently. He was exiled to France and Mexico where he worked as a linotypist, proofreader and editor, and met other exiled Catalans including Pere Calders, Josep Carner and Vicenç Riera Llorca. He began the Catalan magazine, Quaderns de l’exili, published in Coyoacán.

When he returned to Catalonia, he worked in the publishers, Ariel, continuing his work as an editor but also as a writer. With Xavier Benguerel and the publishers, Aymà, he founded the collection, El Club dels Novel·listes, directed by Joan Oliver, where he published his most famous work Uncertain Glory (which, over the years, has been made in several versions). The collection later became the publisher, Club Editor, which was ran by Sales himself.  

Rondalles gironines i valencianes (1951), Viatge d’un moribund (1952), En Tirant lo Blanc a Grècia (1972) and Cartes a Màrius Torres (1976) are some of his famous titles. The last years of his life he dedicated to the Office of Catalan of the Provincial Government of Barcelona. Among other awards, he received the Joan Martorell Award (1955) for Uncertain Glory and the Creu de Sant Jordi (Saint George's Cross) (1982).

Viquipèdia

Who is who (Institució de les Lletres Catalanes)

Joan Sales Collection at the Fundació Mercè Rodoreda (Mercè Rodoreda Foundation)