In thisSpanish name, the first or paternal surname is Cabré and the second or maternal family name is Fabré.
Jaume Cabré
Jaume Cabré i Fabré (Catalan pronunciation:[ˈʒawməkəˈβɾe]; born 1947) is a Catalan philologist, novelist and screenwriter. He was one of the founders of the Catalan literary collective,Ofèlia Dracs.[1]
During many years he has combined literary writing with teaching. He has also worked in television and cinematographic scriptwriting. He collaborated withJoaquim Maria Puyal as creator and scriptwriter of the first Catalan television series:La Granja (1989–1992), followed by other shows likeEstació d'Enllaç (1994–1998),Crims (2000) and the made-for-television moviesLa dama blanca (1987),Nines russes (2003) andSara (2003). He also wrote, together withJaume Fuster,Vicenç Villatoro andAntoni Verdaguer, the script for Antoni Verdaguer's filmsLa teranyina (1990), based on his novel, andHavanera (1993).
In the second novel,Carn d'olla (1978), a very different character stands out,Barringa Barranga, an ex-prostitute who has established a network of relationships in the Barcelona neighborhood ofSant Antoni.
InEl mirall i l'ombra (The mirror and the shadow—1980) music appears for the first time and, in a certain way, the reflection on the value of artistic creation, which will be constant subjects of his work from this point forward.
During 1984 and 1985 three novels appear that will form theCicle de Feixes, in which he had worked for many years. In 1984La teranyina is published, a story set during Barcelona'sTragic Week and which narrates the events of those moments not in Barcelona but in the neighboring fictional city ofFeixes, based on the actual city ofTerrassa. The fight for political, economic and family power is reflected in the movements of several members of the Rigau family and of the other characters that live in this novel.
The same 1984 sees the publication ofFra Junoy o l'agonia dels sons a novel that develops slowly, like all of Cabré's novels from now on, where, besides the underground movements of the Feixes' ecclesiastical world and the monastery ofla Ràpita of which the protagonist friar is the confessor, music plays a very important role. Some of the characters inLa teranyina and the world of Feixes are also present in this novel, which in a certain way is its continuation. It highlights the figure ofFra Junoy, who is a kind of victim of those who have the power of manipulation.
In 1985 the final chapter of the Freixes CycleLuvowski o la desraó was published as a novelette, in a larger collection of short stories:Llibre de preludis, in which music plays an even more prominent role.
In 1984 Cabré published his second work of juvenile fiction:L'home de Sau.
In 1991Senyoria is released, a novel about the judicial corruption that emanates from absolute power, set in Barcelona at the end of the 18th century. If with Fra Junoy he painted a victim, now with donRafel Massó, the civil regent of the Court of Barcelona, he paints the figure of the hangman, with all his fears and selfishness.
L'ombra de l'eunuc (1996) is a novel that recounts the last years ofFranquism, the Transition and the years that followed from the author's perspective, personified inMiquel Gensana, the protagonist. At the same time it is a novel of reflection about artistic creation and, especially, about creating music. The story structure is based on the structure ofAlban Berg'sConcerto for violin and orchestra.
While Cabré began work on the following novel, he also began to branch out into other genres. In 1999 he publishedEl sentit de la ficció, an essay on literary creation, writing, and about his own cooking.
In 2000 there is a return to fiction withViatge d'hivern, a collection of fourteen stories that are interrelated by hidden impulses. The reader keeps on discovering these relationships as he advances in the stories; and the ties remain even though each story is set in very different places and periods. It is a look at aEurope that we have not been able to construct in any other way.
The following year, 2001, he published and performed for the first time in theTeatre Nacional de Catalunya, with the playPluja seca, in which he wrote about forgery of the historical memory and about the fact that history is written by the victors. The drama starts in the castle atPeníscola, which has been converted into a Papish court (true for them, schismatic forRome) on the day thatBenedict XIII dies and the decimated cardenalici school decides to nominate a successor who is viewed in Rome as anantipope.
Les veus del Pamano (2004) begins in the forties, in a little village at the foot of the Catalan Pyrenees,Pallars Sobirà, and it continues to the present day, with a parade of characters like the teachersOriol Fontelles andTina Bros, or the womanElisenda Vilabrú. The historical memory, the impossibility of forgiveness and the fear to forget are some of the subjects that turn up in this novel.
His latest novel,Jo confesso (Confessions), was published in Catalan in 2011. In it, the author reflects on the concept of evil throughout human history through the life of a cultured and intelligent main character born in post-Civil War Barcelona. The English edition was published in 2015 by Arcadia Books in London.
^Aramburu, Diana (2019).Resisting Invisibility: Detecting the Female Body in Spanish Crime Fiction. University of Toronto Press. p. 238.ISBN978-1-4875-0459-5.
^Catalan Writing. Institució des Lletres Catalanes. 1990. p. 89.
