Ester Xargay Melero

Ester Xargay Melero
Xargay in 2012
Born(1960-04-12)12 April 1960
Sant Feliu de Guíxols
Died19 January 2024(2024-01-19) (aged 63)
Palamós
Alma materUniversity of Barcelona
Occupations
  • Poet
  • video artist
  • translator
  • cultural agitator
Writing career
LanguageCatalan, French
Notable workDesintegrar-se
Notable awardsPremi de poesia catalana "Cadaqués a Rosa Leveroni"

Ester Xargay Melero (Sant Feliu de Guíxols, 12 April 1960 – Palamós, 19 January 2024)[1] was a Catalan poet, video artist, translator and cultural agitator.[2][3] She was also active in writing novels, essays, and translations.[4] Her work, poetic and audiovisual, was marked by experimentation through which she addressed topics such as late capitalism, sexism, environmental destruction, and repression by the Spanish state.[5]

Early life and education

Ester Xargay Melero spent her adolescence and youth between Paris and Bourges, and returned to the Catalan Countries when she was 18 to study art history at the University of Barcelona. She soon became interested in the link between the visual arts and poetry.[6]

Career

She was part of the Catalan poetic scene at the turn of the 21st century, weaving her work and moving many cultural activities and initiatives from behind the scenes. She also cultivated the genre of artistic action and happenings.[7]

Xargay's poetic work has been described as groundbreaking.[a] Her poetry is characterized by a formal experimentation that often forgoes personal, temporal, or narrative references, and moves away from the traditional sequential structure of poetic discourse.[5] She collaborated on various poetic research projects, some of them with Carles Hac Mor. She also worked as a screenwriter and translator[9] of works by Blas de Otero, Tzvetan Todorov, Blaise Pascal, and Raymond Queneau.[10]

Xargay contributed to newspapers and magazines such as Avui, Papers d'Art, Reduccions, Transversal, Talp Club, Làtex, Sense títol, Barcelona Review, Internet Corner, and El Temps, with articles on interdisciplinarity, the dissolution of genres, and other topics in the field of art and literature.[7][11]

With David Castillo i Buïls, she was in charge of Barcelona Poetry Week from 2005 to 2010, and with Eduard Escoffet and Martí Sales in 2011. In recent years, she directed La Païssa, a cultural space within El Marquet de les Roques, at Parque natural de San Lorenzo del Munt y del Obac, the house where Joan Oliver i Sallarès vacationed, which is owned by the Provincial Deputation of Barcelona.[12]

Death and legacy

She died 19 January 2024, at the age of 63.[10]

In 2025, the Juneda City Council and the Centre of Arts and Memory of Ponent (CAMP) launched the Ester Xargay Videopoetry Award, an award aimed at fostering the field of video art linked to literature, which recognizes the best audiovisual pieces based on poems, exploring the relationship between the word and moving images.[13]

Selected works

Poetry collections

  • Els àngels soterrats, 1990
  • Un pedrís de mil estones, with Carles Hac Mor, 1992. (ISBN 9788486542474)
  • Volts en el temps, La Cèl·lula, 1997 (reprinted in the book Trenca-sons)
  • Epítom infranu o no (Ombres de poemes de Marcel Duchamp), with Carles Hac Mor, 1997. (ISBN 9788479354565)
  • Darrere les tanques, 2000. (ISBN 9788487685897)
  • Trenca-sons, 2002. (ISBN 9788489885417)
  • Salflorvatge, 2006. (ISBN 9788496638006)
  • Zooflèxia (el bestiari més veritable de tots), 2007. (ISBN 9788496638099)
  • Fissura, 2008.
  • Aürt, 2009. (ISBN 9788497797504)
  • Eixida al sostre, 2009. (ISBN 9788492408863)
  • Infinitius, 2017. (ISBN 978-84-16554-59-1)
  • Desintegrar-se, 2019. (ISBN 978-84-948342-6-4)

Novels

  • Carabassa a tot drap, o Amor lliure, ús i abús, with Carles Hac Mor, 2001.

Theatre

  • Tirant lo Blanc la, o La perfecció és feixista, o La construcció del socialisme, with Carles Hac Mor, 2000.

Awards and honours

  • Desintegrar-se, Premi de poesia catalana "Cadaqués a Rosa Leveroni" (Catalan poetry prize "Cadaqués a Rosa Leveroni"), 2018[14][15]

Notes

  1. ↑ According to Jaume Aulet,[8]
    "La poesia d'Ester Xargay és provocadora i transgressora. Tensa el llenguatge fins al límit de l'experimentació i s'acosta sovint a les actituds de la poesia que la tradició –especialment la francesa– ha qualificat de maleïda. És l'insurrecte que entra per la boca i, fet eructe, en surt gramatical, tal com expressa en una de les seves composicions."
    (trans. Ester Xargay's poetry is provocative and transgressive. She stretches language to the limit of experimentation and often approaches the attitudes of poetry that tradition – especially the French one – has described as cursed. She is the insurgent who enters through the mouth and, belched out, comes out grammatical, as she expresses in one of her compositions.)

References

  1. ↑ "S'ha mort Ester Xargay, la poetessa inconformista" [Ester Xargay, the nonconformist poet, has died]. VilaWeb (in Catalan). 19 January 2024. Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  2. ↑ "Ester Xargay i Melero". www.enciclopedia.cat (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  3. ↑ Gelonch, Francesc (26 January 2024). "Ester Xargay, la rialla infinita" [Ester Xargay, the infinite laugh]. Núvol (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  4. ↑ Zaera, Anna. "Ester Xargay - 'Sempre m'he considerat un noi fallat'" [Ester Xargay - 'I've always considered myself a failed boy']. VilaWeb (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  5. 1 2 Llumà, Núria Juanico (19 January 2024). "Mor la poeta experimental i radical Ester Xargay als 63 anys" [Experimental and radical poet Ester Xargay dies at 63]. Ara.cat (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  6. ↑ La convidada, Ester Xargay i Melero, és una dona singular que sap seduir d’una manera o altra. Vingué a presentar ‘Infinitius’, un poemari que és una Ars poètica. A parer de Jordi Marrugat, el prologuista, arriba «al punt que esdevé una poesia sense cap ni peus, forassenyada, absurda.» Publicada per Lleonard Muntaner Editor, va acabar-se d’estampar a la Ciutat de Palma el 8 de març de 2017. «Res de només llegir. Res de només dir. Per això el llibre ha estat escrit en la dinàmica de la tensió entre raó i desraó, ordre i sorpresa.», conclou Vicenç Altaió, que tanca el llibre [The guest, Ester Xargay i Melero, is a unique woman who knows how to seduce in one way or another. She came to present ‘Infinitius’, a collection of poems that is a poetic Ars. In the opinion of Jordi Marrugat, the prologue writer, it reaches “the point where it becomes a poetry without head or feet, absurd, absurd.” Published by Lleonard Muntaner Editor, it was finished printing in the City of Palma on March 8, 2017. “Nothing to just read. Nothing to just say. That is why the book has been written in the dynamic of the tension between reason and irrationality, order and surprise,” concludes Vicenç Altaió, who closes the book.]. Aparador de poesia (in Catalan). 13 April 2017.
  7. 1 2 Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CC-BY-SA via OTRS), ed. (2 December 2013). "Fitxa d'Ester Xargay" [Ester Xargay's profile]. Soy Cámara #32. L'artista al seu taller (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  8. ↑ Jaume Aulet citat per José Antonio Pilar a la revista Benzina: "El club dels poetes vius" Archived 2022-12-07 at the Wayback Machine, 2009, p 12.
  9. ↑ "Ester Xargay, morir és ser infinitiu per sempre" (Ester Xargay, to die is to be infinitive forever), Enric Umbert-Rexach, Núvol, el digital de la cultura, 28 June 2018.
  10. 1 2 Palau, Maria. "Mor la poeta Ester Xargay als 63 anys - 19 gen 2024" [Poet Ester Xargay dies at age 63 - Jan 19, 2024]. El Punt Avui (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  11. ↑ "Ester Xargay, autora a 'El Temps de les Arts'" [Ester Xargay, author at 'El Temps de les Arts']. El Temps (in Catalan). 16 May 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  12. ↑ "La Pahissa del Marquet, nou centre cultural en el refugi de la Colla de Sabadell" [La Pahissa del Marquet, new cultural center in the Colla de Sabadell refuge]. Diari de Sabadell (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026.
  13. ↑ "Juneda impulsa la videopoesia amb el 1r Premi Ester Xargay". Lleida.com (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 April 2026 – via Internet archive.
  14. ↑ "Joan Armangué, Susanna Rafart i Ester Xargay, Premis Literaris de Cadaqués" (in Catalan). 2018-04-24. Retrieved 2024-01-20.
  15. ↑ X.C (2024-01-20). "Cadaqués premia Rafart, Xargay i Armangué - 25 abril 2018" (in Catalan). Retrieved 2024-01-20.
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