Sebastià Portell (Ses Salines, Mallorca, 1992) is a writer and author of the novels El dia que va morir David Bowie (2016, winner of the Barcelona Time Out Prize for Creator of the Year) and Ariel i els cossos (2019). He has also published the short story collection Maracaibo (2014), the essay Les nenes que llegien al lavabo (2021), and the plays La mort de na Margalida (2012, a finalist for the 2012 Pare Colom Award for Mediterranean Theatre, and a Special Mention in the Fifteenth Boira-Òmnium Theatre Award), Un torrent que era la mar (2014, winner of the Sixth City of Badalona Theatre Prize), L’endemà de Fedra (2016), and Transbord (2018, a finalist in the Sixth Balearic Islands Dramaturgy Tournament). He has also edited the biographical study Antònia Vicens. Massa deutes amb les flors (2016), and Amors sense casa (2018), the first Catalan anthology of LGBTQ poetry.

He has worked as a cultural and literary educationalist in several media outlets, for example as coordinator of the LGBTI+ section of the magazine Time Out Barcelona (2017-2020), and in charge of the Books Section “La lectura no és verdura” in the radio programme Soroll, of the station Ser Catalunya (2018-2020). Since April 2021, he has been head of the Books Section “Lletra lligada” of the La Xarxa TV programme Connecticat.

Sebastià Portell has been a member of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan language Writers) since 2017 and its secretary since 2019. From March 2022 he is the president of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana.

Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC
Front page photograph: © Carme Esteve / AELC
Translation: Julie Wark