Ariany, 1945. Writer and journalist

Els carnissers [The Butchers] reveals a novelist that has already developed the tools to turn what could have been a thesis paper into a vivid plot: the transfer of power between two worlds that hate each other, the ancient lords of Majorca and the servants turned land owners in their own right. [...] Although La mort i la pluja [Death and Rain] is a collection of short stories (it was awarded the Mercè Rodoreda Prize for short stories), I find it hard to view them as anything other than a tableau. At the heart of everything there is a town and a family that have suffered the misfortune of the father having died; the widow is young and has a number of children to raise. Situations develop through which they become alienated from their homeland and are able to leave all together: to make something of themselves, flee to another life. I have read few other things that have touched me as deeply as the story – “L’ordenació del món” – in which the eldest brother discovers that his town is not featured on any map and, therefore, does not exist; the boy becomes a geographer in order to rectify the unbearable injustice of not existing.

Sicília sense morts [Sicily without the Dead] also deals with forms of destruction. This time, Frontera's puppets are not former carers turned predators, or painters turned lackeys of speculation, but “sons of” who have gained access to the power of powers, the Government, in capital letters, from where they perpetuate practices related to the ancient and eternal condition of greed. In order for this to work there is a requirement for a parish with an abundant supply of “sons of”, who are willing to march to their tune. This is the lesson we learn from Frontera's books: that, in a corrupt society, all, without exception, become corrupt. [...] Frontera's main characters form a strange company that persists far beyond the book. It is a company made up of those who lack balance, who live conflicted by antagonism or consumed by ambivalence. That epitomizes the protagonist of L'adéu al mestre [Farewell to the Master], as it does Mateu Llodrà, one of the protagonists of Sicília sense morts, whose actions cause the disaster. Interestingly, the other protagonist bears a strange resemblance to the current president of the Government of the Balearic Islands. [...]

Guillem Frontera has a great sense for the past that he sagaciously applies to the present: he knows how to lead us to identify, in modern destruction, archaic passions with a capacity for transformation – just like bacteria or people. Childhood comes up from time to time in his more political books; childhood as the principle behind all things that are important. Sicília sense morts features a piece on childhood as part of one of its chapters, in the same way as it is reminiscent of some of his other novels, perhaps because Frontera, after a long time away from writing, is once again taking possession of a set of work that has become a landscape. Telling the story of the conflict between two opposing sides like Guermantes and Méséglise, which I'm not sure is sufficiently described by the words loss and survival, it is the work of a great writer. Many readers do not know of his existence, which is no surprise given the current times and the situation in which we find ourselves. Depending on how you look at it, that could be seen as exciting, as it presents an opportunity to dive in and work your way through the whole collection. Beginning with La mort i la pluja and ending on Sicília sense morts, or beginning with L'adéu al mestre and ending on Els carnissers, the order is not important. It would be good to know that his natural audience could do just that without having to wait for the “twenty years after” sequel, as, for example, his first editor had to do.

Maria Bohigas. “Guillem Frontera o la història natural de les passions”, Cartes elèctriques (17/02/2015).