J.V.FOIX: THE AVANT-GARDE IN EL PORT DE LA SELVA

J.V.Foix in his home in El Port de la Selva

Today, The Grandma is in El Port de la Selva, a small town in l'Alt Empordà, where the poet Josep Vicenç Foix found inspiration for the most part of his poems. 

The town has a special route dedicated to J.V.Foix where you can follow his life and understand his poetry.

Josep Vicenç Foix i Mas (28 January 1893-29 January 1987) was a Catalan poet, writer, and essayist in Catalan. Born in Sarrià, Barcelona, Foix was a son of one of the best-known bakers in the whole city. He started his studies of Law, but left them after the second course at university. 

More information: Fundació J.V.Foix

From then, he worked in the familiar business as well as he read classic masterpieces of literature by authors such as Lord Byron, Dante Alighieri or Charles Baudelaire. Indeed, Foix never forbade the place where he had been born, not even when the Spanish Civil War ended. 

Some old memories in El Port de la Selva

Nonetheless, Foix always had been a liberal writer who introduced some avantgarde ideology in Catalonia.  

He usually signed his work by using the abbreviation J.V. Foix.

In 1916 began to collaborate with La Revista and started to be interested in avantgarde art. He worked among other publications like Trossos, La Cònsola (1919–1920) or La Publicitat (1923–1936), where he worked as an art director.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War, Foix returned to the familiar business, and let forgotten for some time his artistic purpose. 

More information: Mapa Literari J.V.Foix-El Port de la Selva

The Grandma in El Port de la Selva nowadays

He also compiled his total poetic work, and continued helping young artist related to avantgarde, between which Joan Brossa must be named.

On 25 May 1962, he became a member of Institut d'Estudis Catalans. 

He received many different awards during his life: la Medalla d'Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya in 1981 or el Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes in 1984 are some of them. 

In 1984, the Parliament of Catalonia proposed him for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Download Readings of J.V.Foix

J. V. Foix helped in 1985 to found again the students association Federació Nacional d'Estudiants de Catalunya (FNEC). He was named President de Honour of it. He died in 1987, and buried in Sarrià.

    Alone, I am eternal. A thousand-year old terrain
    entices me, what was strange is no longer strange,
    I was born to this place; desert without oasis.

J.V.Foix