In his first novel, Baltasar Porcel turned his hometown in Solnegre.
Every morning, when I get up, I open the window: before me is Solnegre, a liberal and rough town, formerly a traveller, and now clinging to its sea and its land. The town hall clock has a bell and hammer, and below is the town's coat of arms: a sun made from black stone. The houses sit in the centre of the plain. An extensive and dry plain, with cultivated ground and almond trees, which when in flower seem like a sad dream, because Solnegre should be bright green or the colour of the sun and the earth. The beans from the plain are large and cook well, like almost all of Solnegre's legumes. Barley and wheat also grow there, but not many vegetables, which do not grow well or taste good.
Solnegre, 1961
Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Mateu Ramon.
(Andratx, 1937 - Barcelona, 2009). Baltasar Porcel wrote novels, short stories, travel literature, opinion columns, interviews and theatre plays. In 1960, he moved from Andratx to Barcelona, devoting himself fully to writing. Particularly worthy of mention during this early period are his articles in the magazines Serra d’Or and Destino. Although he made his début as a playwright with Els condemnats, he mainly focused on narrative literature. Man and his passions are a central theme of his novels. These are set in a variety of places although Andratx, the town of his birth, is an important source of inspiration. Solnegre, the title of his first novel, is a symbolic fictionalized version of Andratx, portrayed as a traditional world and setting for a rural and maritime fiction that serves to explore the huge change that the Balearics have undergone over the last fifty years.
Solnegre, the author’s first début as a novelist, was awarded the Ciutat de Palma Prize. The protagonist of this realistic psychological novel lives a numbingly monotonous life in a town in the middle of nowhere, until he decides to face up to reality and take his fate into his own hands.
Andratx is first recorded in 1236, but the first inhabitants of the area go back to the Talaiotic period. It is an area with a long history, and it has left a characteristic mark on the town and its inhabitants. Its heritage is a confirmation of history, and you can find many estates from Moorish times, watch towers and defence fortifications against North-African pirates who attacked throughout the 16th century, owing to the town’s proximity to the sea. The Son Mas estate, a former Moorish farmstead, is now the seat of the council.
Agriculture and fishing were, for centuries, the main activities, but the growth in population meant that in the mid-19th century there was mass emigration of people from Andratx to Cuba. The poor economic outlook for farming and fishing in the area, and the fact that in the port there was a factory that exported soap to Cuba, meant that it was an easy destination for them to choose. For decades, the money that came back to Andratx from the migrants far from home was the basis of the town's economy. Many people settled in Cienfuegos and Batabanó and worked fishing for sponges and coastal trade. They would head there at fourteen years of age, and Andratx became a town of women and the elderly. The 1930s saw a marked decline in sponge fishing and this fact, together with the 1929 crisis and the wars involving Spain and Europe led to the return of a considerable number of people to face years of war, poverty and misery. Nowadays, Andratx is a prosperous area thanks to tourism and construction.
