Quim Monzó and Contemporary Catalan Culture (1975-2018)

Quim Monzó (born Barcelona, 1952) is considered Catalonia's most influential contemporary author, his work studied as a catalyst for the modernization of Catalan culture after General Franco's death in 1975. Analysing Quim Monzó's trajectory from countercultural artist in 1970s Barcelona to celebrity intellectual in the present day, Colom-Montero argues that Monzó's work encapsulates many of the cultural, aesthetic and political tensions in post-Francoist Catalonia. Offering first-time English-language analyses of Monzó's multifaceted artistic trajectory (including political cartoons, translations, journalistic writing, media collaborations and social media persona) as well as new close readings of some of his better-known literary texts, Colom-Montero maps the paradigmatic cultural shifts that have characterized the transition from late Francoist to autonomous and post-referendum Catalonia. At a time of deepening divisions between Catalonia and Spain, in this book Monzó emerges as an author and public intellectual aiming to build a Catalan politico-cultural sphere different from and opposed to that of Spain.
Guillem Colom-Montero is a Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Glasgow.