Rafael Tasis Marca (Barcelona, 1906 – Paris, 1966) developed a highly prolific literary activity as a journalist, critic, writer, playwright, historian and translator. He was leader of the Catalan political party Acció Catalana Republicana and was involved in the administration of the Catalan national government Generalitat de Catalunya during the war — first, as a general secretary of the party and then in the official policy of the first exile. He was self-educated and began writing for the children’s magazine La Mainada and for pre-war prestigious publications such as La Publicitat, Mirador or Revista de Catalunya as a columnist and literary critic. He became a famous novelist thanks to his work Vint anys (1931). In 1948, he came back from his exile in Paris and was a frequent collaborator of the magazines in exile and actively participated in the resistance against the Franco dictatorship. He worked on various literary trends. As a novelist, he published Sol ponent (1953), Abans d’ahir (1956) and Tres (1962) and wrote the crime novels La Bíblia valenciana (1955), És hora de plegar (1956) and Un crim al Paral·lel (1960). As a playwright, he is the author of Un home entre herois (1956), Gulliver i els gegants (1952) and La maleta (1960). He also worked on history, writing La vida del rei en Pere III (1954) and Joan I, rei, caçador i music (1958). He is the author of various literary essays, such as Una visió de conjunt de la novel·la catalana (1935) or La novel·la catalana (1954), or Història de la premsa catalana (1966), the latter written in collaboration with Joan Torrent.
In the 30s, Rafael Tasis translated El retrat de Dorian Gray, the sole novel by Oscar Wilde; La nimfa constant, an Europe-wide success by Margaret Kennedy; and El somriure de la Gioconda by Aldous Huxley, a writer he personally met and appreciated, and of whom he published the version of After Many A Summer a year before his death. He was an avid reader of crime novels and, in the 60s, Rafael Tasis translated classical works such as La clau de vidre (1963), by Dashiell Hammett, for the collection La Cua de Palla. He also translated drama, as the free adaption of Volpone (1957), by Ben Jonson, and La sala d’estar (1962), a comedy by Graham Greene. Some of his translations remained unpublished, as El joglar del món occidental, by J. M. Synge (published in 2014 by Dolors Udina), L’Apol·lo de Bellac, by Jean Giraudoux (played by the theatre company Agrupació Dramàtica de Barcelona), Les maletes del senyor Vernet, a comedy by Claude Megnier, and Assaigs d’un biòleg, by Julian Huxley.
The collection is a donation from Rafael Tasis’ family and is kept at the library Biblioteca d’Humanitats at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. It includes abundant documents: press scraps, political and literary projects, letters to journalists and unfinished or unpublished works.
I Seminari Rafael Tasis (Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 9th March 2016)
II Seminari Rafael Tasis (Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 9th March 2018)
Some of these works have been recently published.
Rafael Tasis
Constel·lació tasiana: contextos i relacions
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura, IEC
Collection «Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura», 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-84-9965-429-4
Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat
Collection «Biblioteca Serra d’Or», 497, 2017
ISBN: 978-84-9883-921-0
Rafael Tasis
Rafael Tasis (1906-1966), cinquanta anys després
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí, Francesc Foguet and Àlex Martín
Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura, IEC
Collection «Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura», 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-84-9965-338-9
Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat
Collection «Biblioteca Serra d’Or», 491, 2016
ISBN: 978-84-9883-841-1
360 p.
Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Editorial Ensiola
Collection «Ensiola Narrativa», 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-84-942075-7-0
232 p.
Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Cossetània Edicions
Collection «Biblioteca de Tots colors», 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-84-9034-374-6
136 p.
Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Cossetània Edicions
Collection «Memòria del Segle XX», 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-84-9034-341-8
254 p.
Aldous Huxley
Translation by Rafael Tasis
Edited by Dolors Udina
Editorial Adesiara
Collection «D’ací i d’allà», 37, 2014
ISBN: 978-84-92405-74-9
224 p.
John Millington Synge
Translation by Rafael Tasis
Edited by Dolors Udina
Editorial Punctum
Collection «Versions», 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-84-940694-1-3
76 p.
Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Editorial Cossetània
Collection «Memòria del segle XX», 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-84-15456-43-8
304 p., 13,3 x 21 cm
Pere Calders
Fe de vida. Cartes a Rafael Tasis
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Editorial Acontravent
Collection «Abans d’ara», 27, 2012
ISBN: 9788415720034
230 p.
Rafael Tasis
Diari íntim. Escrits autobiogràfics
Edited by Montserrat Bacardí and Francesc Foguet
Editorial Acontravent
Collection «Abans d’ara», 21, 2012
ISBN: 9788493972202
428 p., 21 cm
Rafael Tasis & Ramon Xuriguera
L’espantós és el buit, el desert
Edited by Josep Camps i Arbós
Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2010
ISBN: 9788498833232
264 p.