Joana Bel (Barcelona, 1965), is a poet.

She began her literary career at an early age. When she was seventeen, she won the Prat de Llobregat Poetry Prize, awarded by a jury in which Maria Mercè Marçal was one of the members. Shortly afterwards, she met Montserrat Abelló and began a friendship with both women based on their shared interests in poetry. When she was twenty-one, she was awarded the Donna Prize for Fiction with her story Parèntesi (Parenthesis) and was a prize winner at the Maresme Literary Festival with her collection of poems Paisatge de tu i de mi (Landscape of You and of Me). At the age of twenty-three, she received the City of Elx Prize for Poetry with El risc de l'aigua i el silenci (The Risk of Water and Silence, 1990). In 1997, she published the book of children's poems A la nit, el bosc belluga (At Night the Forest Moves), and was subsequently awarded the prestigious Ausiàs March Prize for Poetry for her collection No sé si imagino (I Don't Know If I Am Imagining, 1999). Her work has also been published in numerous jointly authored anthologies, including Vosaltres, paraules (You, Words, 2003) and Eròtiques i despentinades (Erotic and Dishevelled, 2008).

Also noteworthy is her work as a curator and editor of works by such authors as Joan Maragall, Maria Mercè Marçal and Maria Oleart.

She is a member of Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC, Association of Catalan Language Writers).

Contact.



Documentation: Joana Bel.
Web page: Josep Miàs for AELC.
Initial photo: © Xavier Cardona; photographs: © author’s personal files.
Translated by Julie Wark.