Joan Sales (Barcelona, 1912- 1983) was a novelist, poet, translator and publisher.

After a nine-year exile he became one of the most dedicated publishers in the revitalisation of Catalan culture in the period following the Civil War. In 1955 he was one of the founders of Club dels Novel·listes, a collection that later became the publishing house Club Editor, which under his direction published some of the most outstanding achievements in post-war Catalan narrative, books such as Mercè Rodoreda's La plaça del Diamant (The Time of the Doves, in the English title) and Llorenç de Villalonga's Bearn, amongst others.

His most ambitious work, the novel Incerta glòria (Uncertain Glory), evolved from a first version of 335 pages in 1956 to a final edition of 910 pages in 1971, which was still reviewed two years before his death. Considered one of the great novels of the twentieth century Catalan literature, it was awarded the Joanot Martorell prize (1955), the Ramon Llull prize (1968) and the Ciutat de Barcelona prize (1970). In 1976 he published the epistolary collection Cartes a Màrius Torres (1936-1941) (Letters to Màrius Torres, 1936-1941), a work which contributed interesting material for better understanding of the natures of the two writers in the rarefied atmosphere of the Catalonia of the time.

He was a member of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Documentation: Jordi Ferrer.
Up-date: Carme Ros.
Photos: Maria Folch de Sales ©.