Gabriel Florit (Sineu, Mallorca, 1944-2024) is a poet, fiction writer and newspaper columnist.

An accountant by training, Gabriel Florit has worked as a business agent and has been writing poetry and stories since the end of the 1970s without ever engaging with any literary groups or coteries. In 1980, he produced his first collection of poems Carussa (Pale and Wan), which he published himself. His first collection of short stories Prims de barra (Small Eaters) appeared in 1983.

However, it was not until the 1990s that he became known and recognised as a poet, in particular with his collections Pols de corc: en clau de sístole (Woodworm Dust: A Kind of Systole, 1992) and Diàstole i quatre poemes d'amor (Diastole and Four Love Poems, 1994), both of which appeared in the "La Balanguera" Collection of the Mallorca-based publisher Editorial Moll. Notable too is his work of fiction, Històries de Son Sarigot (Son Sarigot Stories, 1991) and also the book published some years later in 1998, the first of the three volumes of his commemorative prose articles, Albellons de la memòria (Sewers of Memory).

Gabriel Florit has continued to publish poetry, the latest collection being El salt de l'àngel (The Angel's Leap), which appeared in 2007 as one of the titles of the Pollença-based publishing house El Gall. Since 1996, he has been writing opinion pieces every Wednesday and Sunday for the newspaper Diari de Balears.

He was an honorary member of AELC (Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Web page: Abel Ramon Vidal for AELC.
Photographs: Author's personal files.