Isabel Oliva i Prat (Girona, 1924). Teacher and poet. 

Born in Girona, she and his brother Miquel grow up surrounded of musical and religious stimuli. They both lose their father shortly before the Civil War, a hard epoch for the family, the same of the immediately posterior, that of the rationing and the estraperlo.

At the childhood and the youth, Isabel Oliva goes to the school and to the high school in Girona, until reaching the title of teacher at the Escola Normal de Mestres of the same city. She meets her future husband, Francisco Torrado, at Espolla, the first place where she works as a teacher. The couple marries in 1950, and their three children, Conxa, Xavier and Júlia, are born.

When her husband dies, Isabel returns to work, this time as a teacher at the new school of Font de la Pólvora, one of the urban neighbourhoods with more immigration from different places of Spain and Portugal. With her original musical methods, Isabel successfully teaches Catalan to the students.

She had already written some verses in her youth, but it is not until she is seventy years old that she starts writing poetry with regularity. She inscribes herself on several courses in the Casa de Cultura, in Girona, and in 2000 wins the prize Terra de Fang de Deltebre with Laberint de Dèdal. Since then, she has published a twentieth of poetry books and has been rewarded at near a thirtieth of occasions with prizes the Guillem Viladot (2001), the Narcís Saguer (2001 i 2005), the Goleta i Bergantí (2007) or the Francesc Castells (2012 i 2016).

She is an honorary member of AELC (Association of Catalan Language Writers).

Web page: Cinta Paloma for AELC.
Documentation: La nena de les trenes d’ambre. Isabel Oliva i Prat, una vida feta poesia (2023), by Maria Garcia.
Photographs: author’s personal files.