Narcís Oller (Valls, 1846 - Barcelona, 1930) was the first great Catalan novelist of the modern cultural renaissance, and in fact is regarded as the creator of the modern Catalan novel.

He occupies a prominent place in the domain of the realist novel thanks to works like La papallona (The Butterfly) of 1882, L'Escanyapobres (The Usurer) of 1884, Vilaniu (1885), La febre d'or (Gold Fever) (1890 - 1892), La bogeria (Madness) of 1899, and Pilar Prim (1906). Coming from the romantic tradition he moved towards the naturalist aesthetic option, along the lines of Emile Zola. However, he had his own style which was remarked by Zola himself in a Letter-Prologue to the French edition of La papallona. Narcís Oller is remarkable for incorporating subject material and a view of the world which were hitherto unknown in nineteenth-century Catalan literature.



Web page: Xavier Gual for AELC.
Documentation: Xavier Gual.
Update: Toni Terrades.
Translation: Julie Wark.
Photographs: © Societat Narcís Oller.