Manel Marí (Eivissa, 1975 - València, 2018) was a poet and cultural activist.

With a degree in Sociology from the University of Valencia he was active in Valencian student movements and coordinator between 1996 and 1998 of the left-wing, pan-Catalanist Bloc d’Estudiants Agermanats (BEA), which is active at the University of Valencia. He worked as a television scriptwriter, columnist, translator and proof-reader, as well as writing in different areas of the media, among them the newspaper Última Hora Ibiza y Formentera and the online publication Nou Diari. He was director of the collection “Poesia Precintada” of the publishing house Res Publica. In 1998 he was awarded the Miquel Àngel Riera Poetry Prize for his collection Poemes en gris (1999) and, in 1999, the Baladre Prize of the Institute for Eivissa Studies for Patrimoni dels dies (2001). He also published the collections Clarisse (2000), Poemari de descortesia (2000), Deshàbitat (2004), winner of the Senyoriu d’Ausiàs March Prize, No pas jo (2005), winner of the Mallorca Prize for Poetry, Suite a Mitges (2006), with illustrations by Ricard Bofill Torres, and El tàlem (2008), winner of the 2007 Ciutat de Palma - Joan Alcover Prize. His final collection, Tavernàries (2016), was awarded the Valencia Prize for Poetry offered by the Institució Alfons el Magnànim.

Manel Marí’s outstanding, solid and well-recognised body of poetic work stands out among the writings of his generation. In 2018 he was posthumously awarded the Ramon Llull Prize by the Balearic Islands Government.

Marí was a member of Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC.
Photograph: © Miguel Lorenzo, Nou Diari.
Translated by Julie Wark.