He was an extraordinary man. I need only begin to show the open meat here. One thing is the visit and another life, check it out. It's not the same thing to visit a city as to live a city. I do not want to empty Barcelona into Euskera, above it, nor with the pride of putting the Basques in the chest of Barcelona. That is why I have chosen the books, the paths chosen by others through Barcelona. And I don't know if Barcelona is literary. Well, yes, to the extent that anything is literary. But what I do know is what appears in a book machine, in a bunch of books at different times. We start the road with a single author, a universal author: Koldo Izagirre.

Me too, Germinal! The novel El Grito that I wanted to set foot more than once in Barcelona, in different intervals. We could start the road in Modelo prison, because we could not ask better for itself. Euskotarros, by train, by bus, very close to the Sants station where we landed, the prison of Modelo. There, the vis a vis a vis room is now Salvador Puig Antich, the last revolutionary that Spain ticked, an anarchist. And some prisoners, even knowing where they are, get warm on the naked visit.

After visiting the area of the Freedom Zone, the traveler will appreciate the breadth of the air he has. At the foot of the damned castle that they could not destroy, Moll de la Fustan, before the narrator goes to the support commission for Basque prisoners, always visits the large sites of the sculpture of Salvat Papasseit. We do not know, however, what the appointed committee might be. Still on the margins of the wind, new breeze.

It is best to reach above the Ramblas, leaving the sea behind. Sartre liked to get up and down from Naples so much. But let's not leave Germinal. You have it on the Ramblas, it's awesome. Next to a church is the Central Tabacos Company of the Philippines, in church extensions. Jaime Gil de Biedma discovers something in his work for years. Working in the company and a little later, on Robador Street, in the company of the night. In the centre of the street of Robador, the late typewriter Giuseppe Santo, in Barcelona, gave a few words. A prostitute, a camel would have heard him if he had done it last night.

Jean Genet

Without getting too far from Raval, we will find Jean Genet and his Journal du voleur. Of course, at the time of Genet Raval was not Raval, it was Barriochina. We're in 1932. Beggars cover everything like lice. Genet says: And, therefore, he himself was aware that it was you. And Migdia doesn't exist today, but Carme Street did, mostly, live them. Sometimes, six people slept in their sleepless bed, and from dawn on, they went to markets to ask for grandma. They went out in a group of Barriotxo, Paral.lel separated into the avenue, a forearm under the arm, because housewives more easily gave a leek or a turnip than a coin. They would come back at 12 o'clock, they would eat with what it was.

It wasn't just aphids. Also his wives called Las Carolinas. I don't know for sure what it was, but this is: chales, mantelinas, silk suits, narrow jackets. One day they did the poem, around the port, in a urinal shot in the urine of eleven soldiers. Starting from the Paral.lel, they tortured Sant Pau, descended on the Ramblas to the statue of Colón. Their wounded voices, their cries of pain, their exaggerated gestures. Among them, Genet wanted to. Daughters of shame. Once in the port, they headed towards the barracks and left the ramillet over the rust and stench of the urinary veneer.

Then La Criolla. The cabaret was on Cid Street. The cabaret was prostituted genet. We go back to Raval. Stilitane hung from her cuff, but woe, man! They often went together to La Criolla. It had never occurred to them before. But when he gave him the money he got with some men in the urinal, Stilitano decided that his partner would work in La Criolla. Would you like to dress up as a woman," Genet said in his ear.

George Orwell

Drowned atmosphere, we will leave to the Ramblas to take some wind. The book Ramblak Homage to Catalonia kicks off the hand of George Orwell, who appear above the rest of Barcelona. Be it the scenario of epic events, be it the meeting place of the human side. That is, the meeting point of the differences between the republican government and the anarchist militias. Next to Cafè Moka was the seat of the POUM. On the roof of the Poliorama Teatroa, Reial Acadèmia de les Ciències de Barcelona, Orwell spent three nights, the most terrible of his life. From there he saw, for the first time in Barcelona, the sea since his arrival.

At first, it was difficult for him to know what was going on, who opposed whom. People were used to street struggles, to local geography, to guessing who they controlled. The laborious right of the Ramblas was obviously anarchist. In those on the left, on the contrary, the civil guard ordered and the PSUC was communist. However, Orwell’s difference in the Plaza de Catalunya was quite confusing. In the Hotel Colon, for example, in the main house of the PSUC, in that second “O” of the giant label had a machine gun that could clean the plaza.

The Hotel Colon, today Banesto, dedicated to writers, artists and above all architects. The expectation of the new Barcelona, the cradle of projections. They won't happen! It was a cry of excitement. The square was complete for war. For example, between the corners of Telefónica, Fontanella and Portal de l’Àngel. Taken by the CNT, the bloody events of May 37 began, founded by the great Pere Calders in Gaeli i i i l’home Déu. Orwell starts chapter 9: “He crosses with a friend and tells me, unimportant, that there’s a bit of noise in Telefónica.”

Mercè Rodoreda

The 36's has once ended, and we too will have to start to finish. Quieter, because it was 35 years of consecutive peace. Mercè Rodoreda surprised those of Barcelona, with curiosity, going back to the city. We have left the coast, we have done the high of Rambla-Ravales, through the Plaza de Catalunya, to end now in the district of Gràcia. Why not, in the noble company of a refreshing drink, in one of the terraces that have turned the neighborhood into a tingling, the warm sun on the surface. If we take Rodoreda's novels, it's best to start finishing in the Plaza del Diamante.

Barcelona also wants its novel, a paper fiction that brings together the entire city. With the literary hygiene to the limit, the session was held by Sergi Pàmies, with a collection of stories entitled La gran novel.la about Barcelona. Some who are more serious, however, have said that it might be Rodoreda's. There is, at least, the most widespread and recognized work of the writer. And it's in Gracia. The diamond square, a festive atmosphere, a dance, so begins the first chapter.

But it's not the only novel the author puts in that neighborhood. The carrer de les camèlies is the title of another of the most famous works of Rodoreda, with the name of the elegant street of Gràcia. Mirall trencat and Aloma, among two other well-known, occupy the geography of the city that we are currently stepping up. And, in the end, it was not clear to me whether Barcelona is literary. But there is no doubt that those who are quoted here, and that which is manifested in so many more, have no doubts. A city that burns the soles of its eyes, Barcelona.