Marià Vayreda
1853–1903
Biography
Marià Vayreda i Vila was a Catalan writer and painter, born in 1853 in Olot, in the Garrotxa district of Catalonia, into a family of rural nobility. At seventeen he joined the Carlist forces in the Third Carlist War of the 1870s, the conflict fought by supporters of a rival claimant to the Spanish throne. After the defeat he went into exile in southern France. Over the years his politics moved away from Carlism and towards a conservative Catalan nationalism. He died in Olot in 1903, aged forty-nine.
He trained first as a painter, working in the Olot school of landscape and religious painting alongside his brother Joaquim. In the late 1880s, when painting had brought him little success, he turned to literature, and he took an active part in the cultural life of Olot, helping to found a local magazine. He wrote around twenty-seven short pieces of fiction, but his novels were the core of his output. Records de la darrera carlinada (1898) is a book of fourteen short narratives about the Third Carlist War, told some twenty years after it, when he saw the Carlist cause as outdated. Sang nova (1900) is a novel of ideas that argues against the damage modernity was doing to traditional values, and critics received it coolly. La punyalada, a story of love and rivalry set against banditry, was published after his death in 1904 and is now his most admired novel.
The site holds Sang Nova in two volumes, catalogued as 'Sang Nova: Novel, la muntanyenca'. Its opening words match the title of the 1900 novel described above, so it is the place to read that argument for yourself.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Sang Nova: Novel, la muntanyenca (Volumes 1 and 2)
by Marià Vayreda
After years of study and travel, young Ramon Montbrió returns to the mountains to settle on his family estate, encouraged by his uncle, the rector of Vall de Pedres. His growing attachment to the proud house of Serra-Bruna and its daughter Montserrat draws him into old village…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.