Assumpció Cantalozella (Santa Coloma de Farners, La Selva) is a writer and journalist.

After graduating with a degree in Philology, she spent some years teaching language and literature. She worked as a journalist for the weekly Presència, was Girona correspondent for Mundo Diario and, in 1979, was one of the founders of the newspaper El Punt Diari, for which she still writes opinion pieces.

She has published a dozen novels as well as short stories in a number of collections, for example Bocatto di Cardinale (1985) by the Ofèlia Dracs collective, and Tapís (Narradors a Girona) (Tapestry (Storytellers in Girona), 1990). Her early novels were about the years of the Franco dictatorship and the ensuing transition and include such titles as Escubidú (Scoubidou, 1982), Sauló (Gravel, 1984), La ciutat (The City, 1990), La visita de Truda (Truda’s Visit, 1993) and Les campanes de Sant Serní (The Bells of Sant Serní, 1996). After a novel set in the years of the Republic, La pluja d’estels (Shower of Stars, 2001), she began a new history-themed series about medieval Catalonia. These books, which were highly praised by readers and critics alike, include El falcó del comte (The Count’s Falcon, 2003), a finalist for the Sant Jordi Prize, Corpus de Sang (The Corpus Christi Bloodbath, 2004), winner of the Pere Calders Prize, El retorn d’Hug Roger (The Return of Hug Roger, 2007), L’amor secret del rei En Jaume (King Jaume’s Secret Love, 2010) and El confident dels reis (Confidant of Kings, 2012).

Assumpció Cantalozella has combined her work in education, journalism and writing with left-wing activism on the municipal and national scales. She has been a member of Assemblea Nacional Catalana (Catalan National Assembly) since it was first founded.

Cantalozella is a member of Catalan PEN Club, where she has worked for many years as a member of the Committee for Persecuted Writers. She is an honorary member of Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC, Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Web page: Josep Miàs for AELC.
Documentation: Assumpció Cantalozella.
Photographs from the author’s personal files and the AELC archive.
Translated by Julie Wark.