Joan Soler i Amigó (Badalona, 1941-2022) was a writer, educationalist, and folklorist.

From a well-to-do, conservative, Catalan nationalist family, he began to study at the Barcelona Seminary, which he left after seven years whereupon he studied Education in the Arts Faculty. He worked as a teacher and educationalist until 1979 when he began to work in the first democratic City Hall of Badalona after the Civil War. After the 1960s, he was associated with the Nova Cançó and Grup de Folk movements as an adaptor, translator, and songwriter with such emblematic songs as “La vall del riu vermell” and “Les rondes del vi”, which was cowritten with Jaume Arnella, with whom he later released the disc eròtica monàstica (1994). In 2011, he published an anthology of his songs, 50 anys 100 cançons.

His interest in traditional and popular culture led him to produce a large body of work with such titles as Festes tradicionals de Catalunya (1978), Mitologia catalana. Dracs, gegants i dones d’aigua (1990), Nadal català (1995), Llegendes del drac, l’heroi i la donzella (2005), and Les bruixes es pentinen. Mitologia i realitat de la bruixeria catalana (2014), the latter coauthored with Roser Pubill. His most outstanding work is the ten-volume encylopaedia Tradicionari. Enciclopèdia de la cultura popular de Catalunya (2005-2008) of which he was editor and contributor of several sections.

He worked for years as a specialist in culture and education in the L’Hospitalet and Badalona councils. His activism is also present in local publications and associations like the Badalona Orfeu (Choral Society). Moreover, he wrote some collections of mostly unpublished poems as well as two prize-winning historical novels.

He was an honorary member of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan Language).

Web page: Francesc Viñas for AELC.
Documentation: Emili Muñoz Martínez: Joan Soler i Amigó. La revolta de la tradició. Badalona: Museu Badalona, Ajuntament de Badalona, 2024.
Translation: Julie Wark.
Photographs: Author’s personal files.