In the 1930s, Francesc Trabal was at the center of the thriving Catalan arts scene. Born in 1899, he started his career as a journalist, serving as editor and later as director of Diari de Sabadell. He soon shifted his focus from journalism to literature, reflecting his immersion in a cultural milieu enriched by Dadaism, Surrealism, and Modernism. In the 1930s, before he was forced into exile by the Spanish Civil War, Trabal published a series of novels that humorously depicted life among the Catalan bourgeoisie. His most celebrated novel, Waltz (1936), has been published by Dalkey Archive in a new English translation, bringing Trabal’s cinematic comedic style to 21st-century readers. In this novel, Trabal draws on modernism’s interest in psychological representations, surrealism’s delight in the unexpected, and a cinematic flair to tell the story of a young man’s sexual and romantic coming of age. Trabal’s comically incisive representation of middle-class society, combined with his unrelenting depiction of his 19-year-old protagonist Zeni’s missteps and misjudgments, make Waltz a delightful read, particularly for readers interested in a Catalan classic of modernism.
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