“Space and time obsess me a lot and I would tell you that everything I write revolves around these two axes”. Although it gets dark, Jordi Corominas has leaned over the bar asking for a vermouth and letting himself be surprised by a musical selection that, for the occasion, is Jalen Ngonda's Doctrine of love. The regular smiles, at ease.
Inquisitive and restless, since childhood he enjoys inventing stories or reinventing them. “And I suppose that being the son of an Art History teacher and an engineer has allowed me to combine a very methodological part with a more artistic one, always with a marked historiographical awareness of life”. To this, we must add a prodigious memory, which allows him to retain a large amount of data that, since he was twenty-three –“when I knew exactly that what I wanted to do in life was to write”– has allowed him to concoct a vast diversity of works that include novel, poetry and essay.
A vision that mixes data, lyricism, imagination, the taste for delving into the past to interpret the present (and, if necessary, seeing the future coming head-on) and a deep Europeanist link with a Barcelona “that I don't love as much as many people think”, although he has not stopped glossing it.
The obsession with space is sublimated through an intense travel activity, with a special predilection for Italy (he lived in Rome for some sweet student years), France and Germany, in search of the lexicons and intellectual substrates that unite us Europeans beyond the miseries and pettiness of nationalisms. All this, topped with an incurable hobby for photographing places, corners and details.
“As an author, I have the feeling that I have my own voice that encompasses what I say and how I say it, and that this voice grows, evolves, matures, in a process that discovers new flaws that you have to correct and vices that you have to get rid of”, he reflects. And, after a sip, he determines: “in this sense, writing should be like living: a matter of continuing to learn, polishing yourself and filing down your obsessions”.
Writing should be like living: a matter of continuing to learn, polishing yourself and filing down your obsessions.
Honoring the promise to José Luis
The work of Jordi Corominas is so varied that it is impossible to guess what his next project might be. At the same time, the literary trail he has left in his wake clearly reveals the ethical, intellectual, and lyrical ingredients that define his voice. We don't quite know what, but we do know how.
His oeuvre includes everything. Novels, such as Una dona que sap jugar amb els peus, Colors, José García, or the acute reflection of Lo invisible, "about what doesn't happen because it isn't recorded on any social network, even though it did happen." Travel books like Nortes or El último libro de los viajes a Europa. Vehemently Barcelona-themed volumes like Bohigas contra Barcelona, La ciudad violenta, or Barcelona 1912: el caso Enriqueta Martí.
Biography, such as Las muchas vidas de Pier Paolo Pasolini. Or Poesía, traduciendo a Cocteau or with works like Oceanografías, Los lotófagos or Loopoesía(s), which owes its name to the project founded by the parishioner who, since 2009, unites verses, music, theater, and audiovisual projections. A broad and diverse corpus where styles and approaches intertwine, dance together, as in life itself.
His new book, Esplendor (RBA) is in itself a vibrant sum of experiential snippets, but not of its author, but of a character with whom he forged a deep and beautiful friendship. "José Luis was a character who roamed between Guinardó and Gràcia. A very intelligent guy and, for me, the best agraphic writer in Spain. When he died in 2020, I set out to honor a promise I had made to him: to narrate his life."
The novel recounts the life of José Luis, a character full of light and shadow, who with his death has taken away "a certain Barcelona that no longer exists beyond memory." A tribute woven with infinite affection that mixes the real and the fictional, seasoning it with much poetry.
Articles for media such as Eldiario.es, El Confidencial, the program Sota sospita on Radio 4 (presented together with Laura Gonzàlez) or his cultural podcast 15 al dia allow him to talk about books, thinkers, ideas and a Barcelona where not all that glitters is gold.
People have wanted to believe the brand narrative of Barcelona and confuse this brand with the city.
An overrated city
“People have wanted to believe Barcelona's brand narrative and confuse this brand with the city,” laments the writer, who detects the main problem in a presentism that omits the city's past and fails to understand its true social and cultural plurality. “Today's Barcelonians do not have the collective consciousness necessary to rethink a city, despite the importance of past neighborhood movements.”
The excess of institutionalization and politicization “means that here culture is not understood as a vehicle for progress, but as a formula for getting a small position, and that makes me pessimistic,” laments someone who has been studying the history and neighborhoods of a city for many years, a city for which he advocates a management based on neighborhood mayoralties, “to recover its identity and for it to stop being a postcard of Gaudí and Messi.” And, before finishing his vermouth, he adds, with a hint of melancholy: “although I know I will always carry it inside, I feel that one day I will have to leave Barcelona.”
–Perhaps you'll decide to stay here after tasting our gastronomic offer. Dinner time is approaching and we have a menu, sandwiches, tapas, combined dishes… all very good!
Jordi Corominas cannot suppress a laugh and accepts the offer.
“Let's see what tapas you have and what wine I can pair them with,” he replies. And, after a few seconds, he adds, smiling: “and also what desserts there are, because without dessert it's not the same.”