Roser Vernet at the “Escrita no Remoto” Residency

July 28, O Courel

The translator and author Roser Vernet is currently enjoying the “Escrita no Remoto” residency at the Uxío Novoneyra House Museum in Parada (Folgoso do Courel). This residency program, organized by the Uxío Novoneyra Foundation with the support of the Lugo Provincial Council’s Culture Department through the Museistic Network, is starting its third edition this month between the poet’s birthplace and the Pazo de Tor in Monforte de Lemos.

Tor and Parada are two locations closely linked to the work of the Courel poet, and previous editions of the program have hosted authors Yolanda Castaño, Pamen Pereira, and María Sánchez. This year, the invited author is Roser Vernet, who won the latest Premi Ciutat de Barcelona in the Catalan language literature category with her first book “Lo ming del món,” an unclassifiable book that collects a mosaic of experiences interwoven with her place of belonging.

Roser Vernet directs the Centre Quim Soler in El Molar (Priorat), an association that works for the integral development of the community. The center houses the collection of the writer Joaquim Soler Ferret and promotes the study and dissemination of his work. Additionally, it is a space that has linked literature and wine for decades and develops the Priorat en Persona project, which invites Catalan authors to write a literary dictionary of the exceptional landscape of Priorat. Over forty participants during eight editions have lived closely with “adalids” (people representing the living experience of Priorat) who have facilitated the writing of a dictionary in progress with over four hundred words that name the land that welcomes them. In each biannual edition, the authors return to the place to share their texts with the educational community of various schools and institutes in the region.

The Uxío Novoneyra Foundation invites the Catalan author and translator to write about the equally exceptional Courel landscape and subsequently share the written piece with the mountain educational communities. The synergy with the Priorat en Persona project was the driving force behind the invitation to initiate a dialogue with the Centre Quim Soler and start a literary conversation between the writings of the lands of Priorat and the Courel fields.

Roser Vernet Anguera was born in Priorat in 1955. Like many, she had to leave the region and live outside of Priorat and the country. She returned permanently at the beginning of the 21st century. She is addicted to practices that generate complicity, large shared tables, and words and deeds that weave and enable dignified ways of inhabiting the places that welcome us.