Carles Sindreu (Barcelona, 1900 - La Garriga, 1974) was a poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, and publicist. He was a sports journalist for the weekly L’esport català where, using the pseudonym of “Fivaller”, he wrote articles about tennis as well as publishing calligrams devoted to well-known figures in the domain of sports. He also wrote for the magazines Mirador, El Be negre, and D’Ací d’Allà, and for newspapers including La Publicitat in the 1930s, and La Vanguardia and El Noticiero Universal after the end of the Civil War of 1936 – 1939. 

In contact with the European artistic avant-garde, he published his first book of poems Radiacions i poemes in 1928 and, in 1933, another collection of surrealist poems, Darrera el vidre, with illustrations by Joan Miró. These two works reappeared in 1975 as a single volume titled Obra Poètica I. In 1960, he published his poetic descriptions of the Ametlla del Vallès nativity scene figures. His short stories in La klaxon i el camí (1931) and his novel El senyor Joanet del Guinardó (1954) are both humorous and surrealist. In 1952 he published La singular història d’un club de tenis about the La Salut tennis club.

He spent much of his life between Barcelona, where he worked as a publicist and antiquarian, and the towns of Ametlla del Vallès and La Garriga in the Vallès Oriental region, where he was active in local cultural life and wrote for local and regional publications.

Carles Sindreu was a founder of ADLAN (Amics de l’Art Nou – Friends of Art Nouveau) and Amics del Circ (Friends of the Circus).

Web page: Francesc Viñas for Associació d’Escriptors en Lengua Catalana (AELC – As-sociation of Catalan Language Writers).
Cover photograph: LletrA - UOC / bibliography Photographs: Biblioteca de Catalunya.