September 7: Echegaray and the Catalan embassies

Next week will mark the one hundredth anniversary of the death of José Echegaray, the first Spaniard to ever win the Nobel Prize for literature. Some media have asked what remains of Echegaray in the Spanish literary tradition, and the response is this: virtually nothing.

How many readers have ever read one of Echegaray’s plays, or watched it on stage? To understand this oblivion, one must remember an essential detail: Echegaray, a playwright who produced honest, yet modest work, received the Nobel prize due to pressure from the Spanish government, who did not wish for it to be awarded to Àngel Guimerà —shared with Frédéric Mistral—. The Catalan author was the Swedish Academy's favorite.

The Spanish government thought it inappropriate for a writer in Catalan to win the Nobel. Therefore, they applied pressure so that —paradoxically— the Spanish translator of his work (Echegaray) would win it instead. So, as you can see, Operation Catalonia is hardly a new thing (1).

Some of those same media are outraged that the current Catalan government is opening embassies in countries that are key to the economic and cultural interests of Catalans. Where there is a tradition in which a government thwarts the international recognition of one of its citizens because he writes in Catalan, it is no surprise that Catalonia wants to have its own voice abroad.

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(1) N.T. It has recently transpired that the Spanish authorities had launched a covert operation (“Operación Cataluña”) to discredit and thwart Catalonia’s independence bid.