--- The desire to be a journalist came to me when I was very young, when I discovered the comic books of Mary Noticias and wanted to be nothing else. I'll tell you, one of the most beautiful things about this profession is meeting wonderful people like, to give just two examples, Joan Llarch or Mary Santpere.
It's early in the morning, because, ever since she stopped working in newspaper newsrooms, journalist and researcher Maria Favà Compta indulges in the pleasure of waking up early and making the most of the hours to work. Leaning on the bar and with a coffee with milk in front of her, she enjoys the conversation framed by a perfect early morning silence, without music or noises to distract her.
"I worked in a pharmacy, but I wanted to continue studying to be a journalist. They advised me to be a librarian, but I wanted to fulfill my dream, so at 17 I entered the newsroom of Garbo. My first assignment was to translate content from an Italian magazine, a language I didn't know. It was a baptism that would make you lose your vocation," she laughs, recalling that summer of 1967 that she shared with Maruja Torres. The parishioner's career would really take off when she entered the newsroom of Tele/eXprés and, later, Diario de Barcelona, where she learned the bulk of the trade and where, she confesses, "I caught the best part of that newspaper's history."
--- There couldn't have been many women, then, in the newsrooms, right?
--- There were very few, yes. And I remember that the first time I went down to the workshop where the newspaper pages were composed, everyone who worked there whistled at me. Years later, one of those who whistled at me apologized. An act that honors him, although at the time I felt very uncomfortable.
In her long journey, during which she worked for newspapers and media such as TV3 or the Cadena Ser's Moroccan correspondent office, and after rejecting an offer to work at TVE "which I always regretted," she ended up being part of the first newsroom of the newspaper Avui. "There we all learned to write in Catalan properly." From there she would retire in 2010, after the merger with El Punt. "At that moment I cried a lot, but then I realized that there was life beyond newsrooms."
Since then, she has dedicated herself to writing chronicles, frequently focused on her neighborhood, Poblenou, as exemplified by her recent latest book: L'Aliança del Poblenou, 150 anys fent història de Barcelona (Ajuntament de Barcelona), an exhaustive and exquisitely documented chronicle of the entity that embodies the soul of the neighborhood.
With a vocation for street journalism
"I am very proud of the municipal information I have been doing. At Diario de Barcelona I already joined the local section and at Avui I did a lot of local information about the city. In fact, when I haven't dedicated myself to local news, it's been because I was 'punished'," says Maria.
--- Punished?
--- Yes, when, for example, there were councilors who directly asked for my head. And then they put me to cover other news fronts, such as society or economy. But my thing has always been local news on the street.
Currently part of the team of the Arxiu Històric del Poblenou and editor of the entity's magazine, Icària, the researcher is especially happy with the impressive book La mina de la mort, which compiles the research on the accident at the Clara mine in L'Espà where, in 1944, 34 miners died. "Many had false names because they were from Jaén and Almería who had been loyal to the Republic and came here fleeing reprisals and with false identities." Another essential title of her work is Diari Avui, 1976-2009, entre el somni i l'agonia, which recounts the history of the newspaper.
But, it seems, the best is yet to come. "I am working on a chronicle about the Club Esportiu Júpiter de Poblenou and its excursionist subsidiary, Icària. It is said that they were anarchists and legend has it that they hid pistols in the balls. It is a political story more than a football one." At the same time, for summer she hopes a new book will see the light "that compares the Ateneu Colom with the Aliança del Poblenou and other entities in the neighborhood, thanks to a donation of the Ateneu's archive that a neighbor of the neighborhood made to the Arxiu Històric".
The woman who saved La Tamarita
When the parishioner passes in front of the gardens of La Tamarita she always says they are hers. And, in a way, she is not wrong: "in its day, as a result of a leak, I published the news that Núñez y Navarro was going to keep the land to build on it. Thanks to that information, I blew up the operation and the gardens are still there" and, she smiles, proud, before recalling "Maragall's enormous anger when I published another piece of information that forced the works of the Hotel Miramar to be paralyzed."
When she was 10 years old, she made her first city guide ---"already as a child she was in love with Barcelona"---, perhaps that's why it bothers her that it is ---nowadays--- in the hands of tourism that "instead of marveling at the chapel of Santa Llúcia, comes to get wasted and pee in the streets. To do what they can't do in their countries. Meanwhile, the city is now very dirty, it has suffered a setback and, to top it all off, it is expelling young people, because it doesn't provide social housing," she laments, while finishing her coffee with milk.
--- At least, there are urban nooks where one can be comfortable and, since we're here, have a nice breakfast. This Bar, for example!
And, catching her on the fly, Maria Favà Compta doesn't have to think much about it.
--- Well, look, I'll have lunch as I usually do when I go to the market, after eating fruit and having my first morning coffee. Give me an eggplant or artichoke omelet, whichever you have freshest. And a glass of red wine!