Tryptich of the Land

Twenty five years after the publication of La terra retirada and La palmera de blat, Mercè Ibarz closes the trilogy that is reunited in this volume with Labor inacabada.

When Mercè Ibarz published La terra retirada in 1993, she embarked on a journey that has not stopped bearing fruit when it comes to Catalan narrative. “A chronicle that is both autobiographical and about a country,” in the words of Joan Triadú, “a priceless testimony.” Ibarz evokes the social, economic, and landscape changes that farmland management can entail in a territory—in this case, her own hometown in La Franja, Saidí. Two years later, she wrote the fictionalized version, La palmera de blat, where the main character is a young journalist who returns to her village for her centennial grandfather’s funeral. Now, she picks the thread back up with Labor inacabada to give shape to this Tríptic de la terra [Triptych of the Land]. Once again written as a first-person chronicle, with fragments of a photographic essay, Ibarz confirms to what extent stories begin telling themselves, and how, with time, we find out that they never end. 

“In her clean prose, at the core of the issues, with the globalizing ambition of books by Mercè Ibarz, we find the promise of meaningful literature, rooted and strong.” —Julià Guillamon, Urc

“In her characters’ adventures, there is a kind of initiatory journey, as though the visible landscapes were the key that unlocked the path to the spaces that are only intuited—but just as real and significant—in the inner land. That changing space, between sleep and wakefulness, where people’s memories, hope, and ghosts nest.” —Enric Sòria, Caràcters