Xavier Romeu (Barcelona, 1941 – near Vilafranca del Penedès, 1983) was a playwright, fiction writer, linguist and politician.

A member of what is known as the "Seventies Literary Generation" (and also a member of the Ofèlia Dracs and Trencavel collectives), his career in Catalan literature can be summed up in the four facets of his work. First, he wrote theatre, with several plays staged between 1966 and 1972 –Els mites de Bagot (The Bagot Myths, winner of the 1967 Ignasi Iglésias Prize); Preguntes i respostes sobre la vida i la mort de Francesc Layret, advocat dels obrers de Catalunya (Questions and Answers Concerning the Life and death of Francesc Layret, Workers' Lawyer of Catalonia, 1970 [jointly written with Maria Aurèlia Capmany]); and Estat d'emergència (State of Emergency, 1972). Second, his fiction writing includes a collection of short stories conceived between 1964 and 1975, La mort en punt (Death on Time, winner of the 1975 Víctor Català Prize) and the novel Ascendent escorpió (Scorpio Ascendant, 1979). Third, his linguistic work includes his unpublished dissertation on phonetics in the Homilies d'Organyà (Homilies of Organyà – one of the oldest literary documents in the Catalan language and dating from the end of the twelfth century), several reference books including Breu diccionari ideològic (Brief Thesaurus, 1976) and the Manual de fonologia catalana (Manual of Catalan Phonology, 1983), as well as his teaching work in linguistics, phonology and diction in such centres as the Tarragona Delegation of the University of Barcelona, the Barcelona Theatre Institute, and the New Theatre Studies centre in Horta. Fourth and finally, his political engagement, which overlaps all the previous aspects of his work, crystallised with his joining the Partit Socialista d'Alliberament Nacional (PSAN – Socialist Party of National Liberation) in 1978, as may clearly be seen in the articles he wrote for periodical publications such as Canigó and Lluita, inter alia.

Xavier Romeu died in a traffic accident near Vilafranca del Penedès in 1983.



Web page: Andreu Gabriel i Tomàs for AELC.
Cover photograph: Ascendent Catalunya. Barcelona: Lluita, 1987.
Translation: Julie Wark.