Enric Balaguer (El Castell de Guadalest, 1959) is an essayist and lecturer in Catalan Literature at the University of Alacant (Alicante). He has studied different authors from the period after the Civil War as well as aspects of the literature of the time and of present-day literature. He contributes to a range of periodical publications, for example the newspaper Información and reviews such as El Temps, Aiguadolç and Caràcters.

Notable among the studies he has written are Dinou poetes dels seixanta (Nineteen Poets of the Sixties, 1987), Poesia, alquímia i follia. Una aproximació a l'obra poètica de Josep Palau i Fabre (Poetry, Alchemy and Madness. An Approximation to Joseph Palau i Fabre's Poetic Work, 1995), Els colors i les paraules. Notes sobre Joan Fuster i la pintura (Colours and Words. Notes on Joan Fuster and Painting, 2007), along with numerous articles about Joan Salvat-Papasseit, Joan Puig i Ferreter, Joan Fuster, Mercè Rodoreda and Quim Monzó.

The following publications are more along the lines of the essay. Paper reciclat (Recycled Paper, 1995) a debut collection of different essays reveals a highly personal geography that is closely linked with the concerns of our times. The closing text is a condensed dictionary of postmodernity. Fulls de ruta (Road Maps, 2002) is a collection of columns written for the Alicante-based newspaper Información, where they were published in the "Arte y letras" (Art and Letters) pages under the heading of "Travessies" (Crossings) and appeared from 1996 until 2001. These texts consist essentially of commentaries on literature and cinema, while there are also notes on places and landscapes. Contra la modernitat i altres quimeres. Nou assaigs sobre el segle XX (Against Modernity and Other Chimeras. Nine Essays on the Twentieth Century, 2002), is a collection that discusses facts or processes that have brought the Enlightenment legacy to crisis point. From ideas about identity, moving through facts like the Holocaust and all the people who disappeared in South-American republics, it also deals with changes in our perception of language. In brief, this book takes the reader on a journey through some of the key issues of the twentieth century. La totalitat impossible (The Impossible Totality, 2006), is a reflection on matters that mark our everyday lives (in the work, social, family, family, artistic, psychological and other spheres) in these times: in a word, fragmentation. Many of us cause too much pollution, while being members of ecological movements, or feeling close to them; we like handcrafted products and yet we shop in the big malls; we feel caught up in a bureaucracy that turns us into rubber-stamp numbers and yet we defend artistic singularity. We are constantly being beckoned towards splitting. This book is a product of the many questions arising from this theme. What is the cause of fragmentation? What are its effects? Above all, what can we do to be united and not split? In short, how can we combat fragmentation? He continued his career with the essay works La casa que vull (2009), La vulgaritat i altres tribulacions dels nostres dies (2010) and Constel·lacions postmodernes (2015).

He is a member of Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC, Association of Catalan Language Writers).

Contact



Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC.
Documentation: Enric Balaguer.
Translation: Julie Wark.
Photographs: Author's personal files.