Miquel Desclot (Barcelona, 1952) is a poet, writer, translator and also an opera librettist. He worked as a university lecturer between 1975 and 1992 in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and in Durham (England).

In 1992, he left teaching so as to be able to devote himself full-time to literature. He has written more than forty books for children and young people, along with the books of poems Cançons de la lluna al barret (Songs of the Moon to the Hat – 1978), which was one of his first collections followed by Juvenília (Juvenilia – 1983), Com si de sempre (As If As Always – 1994) and Fantasies, variacions i fuga (Fantasies, Variations and Fugue – 2006). Some of his translations or versions, true poetic creations in themselves, have been brought together under the title Per tot coixí les herbes. De la lírica japonesa (With Only Grasses for a Pillow. On Japanese Lyrical Poetry – 1994) andDe tots els vents (On All the Winds – 2004). After a few years working on it, in 2016 Desclot published the complete Catalan translation of the Cançoner (Canzoniere - Songbook) by F. Petrarca, an important literary achievement which was awarded the Cavall Verd Rafel Jaume from AELC as the best poetry translation of the year, and with the Ciutat de Barcelona Translation Prize. His poetry has been included in numerous anthologies.

Miquel Desclot has been awarded a number of literary prizes, for prose and poetry as well as translation, for example the 1985 Josep Maria de Sagarra Theatre Translation Prize for his version of Guillaume Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias); the 1988 Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia Prize for the best translation in verse for his rendering of William Blake's Prophetic Books (Llibres profètics de Lambeth), which were mainly written in Lambeth; the 1993 "Serra d'Or" Critic's Prize for Memoirs for his work Llibre de Durham (Book of Durham); and the 2002 National Prize for Children's Literature for Més música mestre! (More Music Maestro!).

Desclot is a member of the Associació d'Escriptors de Llengua Catalana (Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Update: Carme Ros.
Translation: Julie Wark.
Cover photograph: © Carme Esteve/AELC (2013). Photographs from biography: Author's personal files.