Imma Monsó i Fornell (Lleida, 1959) is a writer, and she has worked as a teacher of foreign languages.

Her career as a writer began in 1996 with the book of short stories Si és no és (If It Is It Isn't), which was awarded the Ribera d'Ebre Prize, and the novel No se sap mai (One Never Knows). Thanks to these two books, Monsó came to be regarded as one of the leading writers of her literary generation. This view was confirmed in 1998 with the publication of her novel Com unes vacances (Like a Holiday), which won the Prudenci Bertrana Prize and the Cavall Verd-Blai Bonet Prize. In 2001 she published the novel Tot un caràcter (A Total Character), and subsequently returned to the short story, her original literary option. In recent years she has published two more books in this genre, Millor que no m'ho expliquis (Better You Don't Tell Me, 2003) and Marxem, papà. Aquí no ens hi volen (Let's Go Daddy. They Don't Want Us Here, 2004). She has also published an ironic work on the similarities between the Catalan and Japanese people Hi són però no els veus (They're There But You Don't See Them, 2003). Monsó continued her literary career with novels such as Un home de paraula (A Man of His Word, 2006) awarded the Salambó and the Maria Àngels Anglada prizes, Una tempesta (A Storm, 2009), La dona veloç (The Fast Woman, 2012), which was awarded the Ramon Llull Prize, and L'aniversari (The Anniversary, 2016).

She was awarded the National Culture Prize of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government) in 2013.

A good number of her books have been translated into Spanish with great success, and some of her works have benn translated into Dutch, French, Hungarian and Italian, among others. Her work is constantly beign re-edited.

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



Documentation and texts: X.R. Trigo and Josep Miàs for AELC.
Photograph: © Carme Esteve/AELC (2012).
Translated by Josep Miàs.