Papeles de Son Armadans was written at the writer’s home in Palma’s El Terreno district.
From his terrace, the new journal’s editor can see docile Bellver Castle’s graceful well-proportioned silhouette rising up above the pinewoods: the warrior that never went to war on whose walls the morning sun paints its palest siennas. Bellver’s green, whitish green, greenish black and blue pines do not know – blessed that they are – the acrid smell of gunpowder, although they are familiar – get yeback Satan! – with the acrid sulphur stenchthat envelops the Evil Lord of the Castle and his palaceaide, Joana the Witch - evil devilish spirits, driven away by the Knight of the Three Black Crosses’ virtuous sword, poor exhausted hero. What a marvellous legend!
As he eats his breakfast, the new journal’s editor imagines himself chronicling these tender scenes, a traveller recipient to whatevertreads these narrow paths that are barely even that. Fortunate vagabond collector of charming landscapes, pleasant stories and pleasing horizons.
“Algunas inevitables palabras (Con motivo del nacimiento de la revista)”
Papeles de Son Armadans, 1, abril de 1956
Translated by Rachel Waters.
(Iria Flavia, A Coruña, 1916 – Madrid, 2002). Born in Galicia into a wealthy family, to a Galician father and an English mother, Camilo José Cela is one of the great names of 20th-century Spanish literature. His career was recognised with the highest possible award, the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1989. His first novels, La familia de Pascual Duarte (The family of Pascual Duarte, 1942) and La colmena (The hive, 1951), is a bitter portrait of post-war Madrid. He moved to Majorca in 1954, and he founded the journal “Papeles de Son Armadans” with Caballero Bonald, Baltasar Porcel and others. He was a prolific novelist, with a style that progressively adapted according to the times. His writing in general featured expression through prose and a slightly affected use of language. San Camilo, 1936 (1969) recreates his experience of the week before the outbreak of war in Madrid. He was also a great writer of travel literature, with works such as Viaje a la Alcarria (Journey to La Alcarria, 1948) and Del Miño al Bidasoa (From the Miño to the Bidasoa, 1953). He was made a member of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1957 and in 1995 won the Cervantes Prize, the highest award in Spanish.
In Majorca, Cela created an important centre of literary life connected to the global avant-guard. In 1959 he organised Conversaciones poéticas (Poetic conversations) and an International Colloquium on the Novel in Formentor, with such illustrious participants as Italo Calvino, Marguerite Duras, Vicente Aleixandre and Gil de Biedma.
Papeles de Son Armadans was written at the writer’s home in Palma’s El Terreno district. It was a monthly journal that played a prominent cultural and literary role, presenting new aesthetic and literary trends.
El Terreno is a Palma neighbourhood whose lands belonged to Bellver Castle in the Middle Ages. Today it stands below the castle, with buildings that have gradually changed its initial morphology. In the 18th century, El Terreno estate, from which its name derives, was registered as belonging to Cardinal Despuig. With the purchase of estates and division of their land, a process of urban development began. Combined with the construction of new roads, as from the mid 19th century it gradually led to the consolidation of this residential area. El Terreno has been a home to artists and writers, who transformed it into an important nucleus for artists.
