Institut Ramon Llull donated in 2013 more than seven hundred volumes written by Catalan authors which have been translated into foreign languages. These volumes make up the collection of translated Catalan literature, which is one of the most complete collections in the world dedicated to this matter. There are volumes from medieval times as well as works by recent authors such as Maria Barbal, Jaume Cabré or Quim Monzó. There is also a great variety of languages into which these volumes have been translated, among them latin languages such as Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese, but also distant ones like Japanese, Turkish or Vietnamese; widely spoken languages such as German, English, Russian or Chinese and languages with less reach such as Basque, Danish, Slovenian or Occitan. For instance, among the most translated authors we can find Mercè Rodoreda, 66 works of whom have been translated into 18 different languages, Ramon Llull (41 volumes translated into 11 languages) and Salvador Espriu, who has had 40 volumes translated into 10 different languages. Another relevant case is the classic work Tirant lo Blanc, which has been translated into 9 languages. Even though the majority of the volumes are novels and, to a less extent, poetry, there are also other genres such as drama, essays, epistolary works or children’s literature. Just to mention some of them: stage plays from Josep Maria Benet i Jornet translated into French, English and Bulgarian; a religious essay by Miquel Estradé translated into Italian; a diary by Salvador Dalí translated into Dutch or a short story by Pere Calders and illustrated by Carme Solé Vendrell translated into French and Japanese.
This collection, very important as a prove of the international reception of Catalan authors, can be found in the Càtedra Jordi Arbonès and it aims at promoting research in the fields of translation and literature studies. There are plans of progressively extending the collection through further donations.
