Llorenç Riber describes in La minyonia d'un infant orat this place as the center of his childhood.
The square, then, was my theatre, and my arena, and my gymnasium and my ring. Beyond the square was there the big wide world? Oh, the warm and golden May evenings! The old church, lit up by the sun, was shining like a golden candlestick. It was hot and beat like a great beast; it was sweet to touch like an old piece of ivory. Full of cracks and created years earlier, the whole building was a refuge of burning life. In each crack there was a nest; there was a beating heart beneath every stone: The whole sky buzzed with wings and chirps. Like black feathered darts, swifts sliced through the air. From the countryside came an oily smell, a smell that it was time. The ears of grain were milky and full and the crops were golden. Amongst the crops the violently bloody poppies broke out. The cherry trees boasted their fleshy fruit, shining and succulent rubies. It was the time of ripeness when all things live, love and tremble.
La minyonia d’un infant orat (The Early Years of a Wild Child), 1935
Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Damià Pons.
(Campanet, 1882 - 1958). Llorenç Riber was Professor of Rhetoric and Poetics at Palma’s Seminary, where he himself had trained. Born and raised in Campanet, the author was a contributor to the work on the Catalan dictionary begun by Antoni M. Alcover. He was also part of the group who organised the journal “Mitjorn” and took part in the First International Conference on the Catalan Language. In 1910 was proclaimed “Mestre en Gai Saber” at the “Jocs Florals” in Barcelona. He published the volumes of poetry Sol Ixent (Sunrise, 1912), influenced by Costa i Llobera. He moved to Barcelona in 1913 where he carried out translations of Latin writers for the Fundació Cambó, and these were published in the Bernat Metge collection. Of particular note is his translation of The Aeneid. He published religious books written in rhetorical and bombastic prose, such as Els sants de Catalunya (The saints of Catalonia, 1919-22). In 1927 he was appointed “regional” representative in Majorca of the Royal Academy of Language, under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, something that distanced him from his former colleagues and his literary tutor Antoni M. Alcover. In 1935 he published La minyonia d’un infant orat (The early years of a wild child), a story that recalls the springs of his youth in a rich language full of learned terms, scents of flowers and fruits, located in the town square, the place of childhood games. After the Civil War, he moved to Madrid and devoted himself to journalism and translating St. Augustine and Joan Lluís Vives into Spanish.
Riber wanted to pay tribute to his family and his home in La minyonia d'un infant orat. It includes idealised memories from his childhood, of many of his relations and forebears, together with other characters from the village. It comprises a blend of popular and learned features, harmoniously brought together. Its humorous and incisive style has made it both a classic and a popular work. It has been a set text for generations of schoolchildren.
