Enric Valor: Valencian Writer, Folktales & Grammarian

Enric Valor — Life and Work

Early Life and Recognition

Enric Valor was born in Castalla. He was a self-taught student of the Catalan language and literature. After the war he was jailed; accused during that period, he was only publicly recognized as one of Valencia's most important authors with the return of democracy.

Three Roles: Folktales, Novels, and Grammar

Enric Valor was an author of extraordinary importance in three ways: as a collector of folktales (rondallista), as a novelist, and as a grammarian.

Folktales and Themes

The tales are anonymous stories transmitted orally by the people of Valencia. Valor placed Valencia in real space and transformed it in literature: he did not merely collect tales, but gave people a literary voice with a rich vocabulary. His selection of tales reflects his literary criteria and good taste.

Valencian tales include:

• Fairy tales with supernatural characters
• Tales of manners and social customs
• Depictions of agrarian society and rural life
• Animal tales, similar to fables

Novels

As a novelist, his first work was L'ambició d'Aleix (Aleix's Ambition), and he went on to publish many more works thereafter. His fiction is characterized by a passion for narrative — a strong desire to tell stories — and by a pedagogical aim: a passion to teach and to disseminate knowledge.

Grammar Work

Enric Valor is also noteworthy as a grammarian. One important work is The Verb Inflections, a grammar book that highlights his contribution to the study and preservation of the Catalan language.

Sociopolitical Context and Literary Stages

The sociopolitical context of the war greatly influenced literature in Catalan because the Franco dictatorship sought to create a unitary, totalitarian society in which Spanish would be the only permitted public language.

This policy led to the prohibition of Catalan in many official spheres, literary censorship, and other restrictions. Catalan writers had to decide whether to go into exile and write from abroad, sometimes switching to Spanish, or to remain in Spain. Among those who stayed, some continued to write clandestinely, while others chose silence and stopped publishing.

There were three literary stages

• 1939–1959 — Resistance: A long, difficult period with little critical publishing and much clandestine activity. After World War II some publishing was permitted, but under heavy editorial censorship and restrictions.
• 1959–1969 — Recovery: From 1959 onward there was greater tolerance and an increase in the number of works published in Catalan.
• 1969–1980 — Consolidation: Between 1969 and 1980 Catalan letters consolidated; after that period, certain systems entered phases of decline.

Democracy and Language Normalization

Franco's death and the promulgation of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 opened a period of democracy that normalized the use of Catalan in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands.

The incorporation of Catalan into education, media, and public administration renewed cultural communication and enabled new works and authors to emerge, such as Montserrat Roig and Quim Monzó.