Josep Maria Castellet

Josep Maria Castellet Díaz de Cossío (15 December 1926 – 9 January 2014), also known as José María Castellet, was a Spanish Catalan writer, poet, literacy critic, publisher and editor.

Born in Barcelona, he began his career in writing in 1955, and wrote novels and poetry in both Catalan and Spanish. His final novel was published in 2012.He played an outstanding role in the Spanish and Catalan culture life of the second half of the 20th century. He was the chief editor of the publishing house Edicions 62 (1964–1996) and afterwards president of the Grup 62. He was the founder and first president of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (Catalan writers association), a board member of the Comunità europea degli scrittori, the Prix international de Littérature jury and the dean of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (Institution of Catalan letters).

Josep Maria Castellet died on 9 January 2014, aged 87, in his hometown of Barcelona. Castellet received his education as a literary critic by working for university magazines. His biographers stress his active participation in the editorial board of the magazine Laye (1950–1954), where he held a critical position towards contemporary Spanish literature, and the first publication of an article collection Notas sobre literatura española contemporánea (Notes on contemporary Spanish literature, 1955). His willingness for renewal and the discovery of the European literary critique through the Laye group led him to write La hora del lector (The reader's hour, 1957). As he wanted to make known a group of young poets that had started publishing in Laye (Carlos Barral, Jaime Gil de Biedma and José Agustín Goytisolo), he published the polemic anthology Veinte años de poesía española (20 years of Spanish poetry, 1960) that postulated historic realism. Ten years later a new anthology, Nueve novísimos poetas españoles (Nine brand-new Spanish poets, 1970), marked a change to new poetic tendencies after realism. In 1963 Castellet published, together with Joaquim Molas, Poesia catalana del segle XX (20th century Catalan poetry) guided by historic realism, a concept that he developed theoretically in Poesia, realisme, història (Poetry, realism, history, 1965).

His work as a critic during that time centered on two important books that are still considered works of reference: the structuralist reading of the poetry by Espriu —Iniciació a la poesia de Salvador Espriu (Initiation to Salvador Espriu's poetry, 1971)— and the analysis of the narrative richness of Josep Pla's work, Josep Pla o la raó narrativa (Josep Pla or narrative reason, 1978).In Per un debat sobre la cultura a Catalunya (For a debate on culture in Catalonia, 1983) he reflected on the role of culture in the recently democratic state and the frame of the autonomous region of Catalonia. His last works consisted of memories; the first one, not published until 2007 was Dietari de 1973 (Diary of 1973). He started this presentation of himself and his times in Els escenaris de la (Memory's stages, 1988), went on with Seductors, il·lustrats i visionaris (Seducers, enlightened and visionaries, 2009) and Memòries confidencials d'un editor. Tres escriptors amics (Confidential memories of a publisher. Three befriended writers, 2012).