Josep Maria Puigjaner i Matas (Barcelona, 1937 – 2016). Essayist, journalist, and chronicler.

After a childhood and adolescence marked by the Spanish Civil War, he joined the Jesuit Order, where he studied Theology, Philosophy, and Literature, after which he went to Madrid where he studied Journalism. With his studies completed, and after being ordained in Barcelona, the Jesuits called him back to Madrid to edit the magazine Mundo social, which he did from 1969 to 1976, when he left the order. A year later, he returned to Catalonia where he became director of the publishing house Edicions d'Oriflama.

He combined this work with writing and publishing philosophical and educational essays on current issues of the day, with a focus on Catalan nationalism, Christianity, politics, and social inequalities. After Oriflama closed, he worked for the publishing house Blume and, shortly after that, for the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia, editing educational books about Catalonia, which were later translated into several languages.

While working as an editor and manager, he also wrote, starting in 1979 with the publication of Lletres apassionades a l'hora de l’alba, which was followed by Ser catalán, ¿Qué es eso? (1984), Visions del navegant (1984), Ideologies i corrupció. Bisbes, polítics, ciutadans (1994), Nosaltres no ens donem per vençuts (1995), and Teilhard de Chardin, l'apassionat combat d'un evolucionista total (2013), and other titles.

The result of this intellectual activity was twenty books, as well as more than a hundred articles for the press and scientific and cultural magazines, among them Avui, La Vanguardia, El País, La Razón, Catalunya Cristiana, El Matí, Revista de Catalunya, Projecció exterior, El Europeo, Signo, Razón y Fe, Reseña, and Presència.

As a columnist and also fiction writer, he received prizes including the Avui Award for Journalism (in 1975 and 1982), the 1992 Salvador Espriu Prize for the short story collection Novel·la d'Andrea i altres relats no del tot històrics and the 1990 Serra i Moret Prize for his journalism.

He was an Honorary member of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan language Writers).

Web page: Roger Font for AELC.
Photograph: © Carme Esteve / AELC.
Translation: Julie Wark.