Zoraida Burgos (Tortosa, Baix Ebre, 1933) is a poet and fiction writer.

She has a degree in Library Science from the University of Barcelona and her main professional work is as a librarian. For many years she has been the only female literary voice in the Ebro region and —along with Jesús Massip, Manuel Pérez Bonfill and Gerard Vergés, inter alia— she belongs to Tortosa's post-war generation of Catalan-language writers. She made her literary debut in 1970 when she was awarded the Màrius Torres Prize for her collection of poems D'amors, d'enyors i d'altres coses (On Loves, Longings and Other Matters) and with the inclusion of some of her poetry in different anthologies. After Vespres (Evenings, 1978) and the subsequent books Cicle de la nit (Cycle of the Night, 1982), Reflexos i Blaus (Reflexes and Blues, 1993), for which she received the Guerau de Liost Poetry Prize in 1992, her production can be seen as one unified oeuvre.

She began to publish prose in 1971, with a series of children's books that were published by Juventut. These included Les perdiuetes de les potes vermelles (The Little Red-Footed Partridges) Les culleretes de lluna (Teaspoons of the Moon), El mussol que va obrir els ulls de dia (The Owl That Opened the Eyes of Day) and La negreta Safu i el Narcís (Safu the Little Black Girl and the Daffodil) and, in 1993, she received the Josep Pin i Soler Fiction Prize for L'obsessió de les dunes (The Obsession of the Dunes). In 2012 she received the Vila de Lloseta Prize for poetry with Absolc el temps. In 2017 she published Convivència d'aigües, a compilation of all her poetry books plus some unplublished poems, which was awarded the Catalan Critics' Prize for Poetry.

She has contributed to several collectively-authored volumes, such as Verdaguer i Manyà, vides creuades (Verdaguer and Manyà, Interwoven Lives, 2002), El brogit de l'Ebre. 15 narradors donen veu al riu (The Roar of the Ebre. 15 Writers Give Voice to the River, 2003) and Terres d'aigua. Poemari de les Terres de l'Ebre (2004).

Zoraida Burgos is an honorary member of Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC, Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC.
Documentation: Zoraida Burgos and the anthology Terres d'aigua. Poemari de les Terres de l'Ebre (Water Lands. Poems of the Ebro Lands).
Translation: Julie Wark.
Photograph: © Carme Esteve / AELC.