Robert Graves describes in Majorca Observed the landscapes, the people and the customs that influenced him when choosing Deià as residence.

Back in the village, I had to double-kiss a whole row of male and female cheeks, and tears were shed as at my departure. Though I had meanwhile acquired a wife and three small children, it seemed as if I had been absent only a few weeks, except for the immensity of the tangerine bushes in the garden, and loquat-pits. Of course, children had grown up, and a few old people had died; but families remained intact. [...] Everything I had left behind had been booked after - linen, silver, books and documents - though the moths had got into my socks; and if I felt so inclined, could have sat down at my table, taken a sheet of paper from the drawer and started work again straight away. Deyá certainly rolled out the red carpet for me; my return made everyone hope that prosperity was once again around the corner.

Majorca Observed, 1964

Copyright: The Robert Graves Copyright Trust. Performed by Glynis German.

(Wimbledon, 1895 – Deià, 1985). Robert Graves is one of the most internationally acclaimed 20th century British writers. Born in Wimbledon in 1895, he served with the British army during the 1st World War, an experience that heavily influenced his life and work. After the war, he studied English literature at Oxford, where he was later appointed Professor of Poetry. His private life was marked by three relationships: with his first wife Nancy Nicholson, with poet Laura Riding – with whom he discovered Deià in 1929 –, and with his second wife Beryl Graves, with whom he decided to stay in Deià.

Graves wrote poetry, novels, and reviews, as well as being fascinated with history and mythology. He is the author of works like The White Goddess, the novel I, Claudius (which was adapted for television in the 1970s), The Golden Fleece and Homer’s Daughter. All of them demonstrate the masterly narrative genius of a skilled writer of literature conspicuous for its originality and careful regard for tradition and history.

Although Robert Graves chose to settle in Deià, he never lost contact with the Anglo-Saxon literary world. He was often asked why he had chosen to live in Mallorca. In his portrait of the island, Majorca Observed, an in-depth description is given of the scenery, people and customs that swayed him to choose Deià. He died in 1985 and is buried in Deià cemetery.

The first time that Robert Graves arrived on Majorca he had no thought of making the island his home. He came on the recommendation of the American writer Gertrude Stein, who had lived in the “El Terreno” neighbourhood of Palma in 1914-15. As Graves said, a writer’s luggage is light - only a pen is necessary and nothing stopped him from going where he liked.

In Deià he had everything he needed to write: “[S]un, sea, mountains, spring waters, shady trees, no politics and a few civilised luxuries such as electric light and a bus service to take me to Palma.” Deià had some 400 inhabitants and the most exotic visitors to the town’s inn were painters who wanted to capture on canvas the spectacular landscape. Many well-known writers and artists came to his house, from Gabriel García Márquez to Ava Gardner.

Deià's cemetery, where Graves is buried, is located in front of the seemingly fortified church, and it offers a magnificent view of the coast and the mountains.