Joan Fontcuberta (Argentona, Maresme, 1938-2018) was a translator and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. In his long career, he has mainly focused on translating German and English literary texts into Catalan and also audiovisual translation.

Among the authors he has translated are Thomas Bernhard, Hermann Broch, Daniel Defoe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Günter Grass, Graham Greene, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Mark Twain, Herta Müller and Stefan Zweig. His enormous contribution to the bibliography of Catalan language publications has been recognised with the National Prize for Catalan Literature – Translation into Catalan (1991) for his translation of Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil (La mort de Virgili, 1989), and the City of Barcelona Prize for Translation into the Catalan Language (2010) for his translation of Stefan Zweig's Impatience of the Heart (La impaciència del cor, 2010). He has also written Tots els colors del camaleó (All the Chameleon's Colours, 2008), an essay on translation.

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



Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC.
Documentation: Toni Terrades.
Photograph: Lecture given by Joan Fontcuberta on International Translation Day, in Espai Mallorca, Barcelona, 2012. © Carme Esteve/AELC.
Translation: Julie Wark.