Àlex Broch (Barcelona, 1947) is a critic, essayist, publisher and one of the leading analysts of contemporary Catalan literature.

He has written as a politically engaged critic in the press and specialised reviews, a task in which he accompanied the literary generation of the 1970s as both critic and chronicler. In his later writing, he has given up press criticism in order to produce more theoretical analysis and to cover a broader range of subjects, revealing in this work a remarkable intellectual capacity and abilities as a literary theorist, which had been latent in his more journalistic work.

Broch is a proponent of the idea that literary criticism and the essay should be regarded as literature (instead of merely writings about literature). The validity of his claim is evident in his writings, both in his own discourse and in his studies on the history of Catalan literary criticism.

Besides his critical and essay writing, Àlex Broch has worked for the country’s leading publishers. He has created collections for Edicions de la Magrana, Edicions 62 and Edicions Proa and has also been engaged in creating and managing literary policy. Whether working as a creator or manager, Broch has always shown his commitment to contemporary Catalan literature. As a critic, reporter, essayist, publisher, teacher and observer of present-day cultural phenomena he has never ceased to offer his well-considered and forthright views about the world around us.

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



Web page: Daniel Pitarch for AELC.
Photographs from the author's personal archive.
Translated by Julie Wark.