Leveroni, Rosa, 1910-1985
(Updated 05/01/2021)
Rosa Leveroni i Valls (Barcelona, 1910-Cadaqués, 1985). Poet, librarian and translator. Her first verses were published, signed only with her initials, in En Patufet. Between 1930 and 1933, she studied at the Escola de Bibliotecàries (School of Librarians) where she met some of the most important intellectuals of the time, such as Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer, Carles Riba, Rafael Campalans and Ferran Soldevila. This stage of her life proved to be crucial in her personal and intellectual development.
Between 1933 and 1939, she worked at the Library of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (then named the University of Barcelona). During the Civil War she studied two years of a Humanities degree. In 1938, she published her first book of poetry, Epigrames i cançons, with a foreword by Carles Riba, whom, conceptually, she already resembled in her poetry, with an intimate tone and simple forms. During the war, she joined the cultural resistance, working for the perpetuation of Catalan culture and language and as a contact with intellectuals in exile. She never returned to work as a librarian.
In 1952, she published Presència i record, her second collection of poems, with a foreword by Salvador Espriu. In 1981, Poesia was published, with a foreword by Maria Aurèlia Capmany, which contained her entire poetic works. She contributed to the magazines, Serra d’or and Ariel, where she published poems, stories, translations, essays and literary criticism (above all of Ausiàs March). She was less known for her work as a translator of authors such as T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and Boris Pasternak. During the forties and fifties, she won prizes at the Catalan Language Floral Games held in London, Paris and Cambridge. In 1982, she received the Creu de Sant Jordi (Saint George's Cross) from the Generalitat of Catalonia.
She died in Cadaqués in 1985, the year in which her book, Contes, was published posthumously. Since then, among other things, the letters she kept from Josep Palau i Fabra and Ferran Soldevila have been published. Most of her prose works remained unpublished during her lifetime. In 1986, the Town Council of Cadaqués established the award, Premi de Poesia Catalana "Cadaqués a Rosa Leveroni".
The Biblioteca de Catalunya holds her collection, comprising books which were donated and manuscripts which were granted in her will in 1985.
