Baltasar Porcel, one of the great Catalan writers, dies from brain tumour.

The Majorcan writer Baltasar Porcel has died in hospital in Barcelona, aged 72, as a result of a brain tumour which was operated three years ago. A chapel at the Palau Moja ardent welcomes the remains of the author, to be buried in his hometown of Andratx.

Baltasar Porcel, one of the great Catalan writers, dies from brain tumour.

The Majorcan writer Baltasar Porcel has died in hospital in Barcelona, aged 72, as a result of a brain tumour which was operated three years ago. A chapel at the Palau Moja ardent welcomes the remains of the author, to be buried in his hometown of Andratx.

Baltasar Porcel won the 2002 Premio Nacional de Literatura de la Generalitat de Catalunya in 2007 and the Award of Honor for Literature Catalanas / Pedro Madueño / Archivo writer.

Baltasar Porcel, won the 28th prize Caixa Sabadell Sant Joan with his novel "Every castell i totes les ombres "Jordi Porcel Belver Baltasar a hawk, creating a portrait that appears on the cover of his new book, 'Every castell i totes les ombres' / Peter MadueñoPORCEL in the archive

Porcel, one of the great European writers of our time, was born in Andratx, Mallorca, in 1937. His family had been on the island for centuries, in some of his books Porcel researched his lineage back to the conquest by King Jaume I in the thirteenth century.

The grandfather and the father of the writer emigrated to Cuba in search of fortune and returned without it, "nobody was rich there," say Porcel. For some time, he worked as a cook on a schooner, until he returned to the village of origin. "In the post-war years, the writer-remembered Andratx was a very small community , squeezed between the mountains and the sea, with very poor communications with Palma. Many people had never left the village. The people were poor, and had few possessions. Most of the families have living there for several centuries, mingling among themselves and with little contact with the outside world.

In town, most people are engaged in agriculture, fishing and contraband. A key figure in his life was his uncle and godfather, Baltasar Guillem, adventurous and linked to smugglers, who encouraged the author's imagination early. Porcel has stated that although the prevailing doctrine of the Church was not Catholic, but pantheistic, "and used the example of his own mother, who believed unequivocally in the visible presence of ghosts.
He was a precocious reader, he was elected president of the Congregation of Marian priests and people, "educated people", and was introduced to the writings of authors like Jules Verne or Pío Baroja.

In the 50s, coinciding with the beginning of the boom in tourism, Porcel moved to Palma, whose father found work in a hotel in Victoria. They lived in the suburb of Son Armadams, which also had already the famous Galician writer Camilo Jose Cela.

He was one of the few attendees at the trial of Jordi Pujol, who along the years he maintained a significant relationship. The happy and turbulent sixties. Baltasar Porcel landed in Barcelona at the beginning of the decade that changed the world.

The 70s opened with the publication of one of his most famous writings, Difunts sota els Ametllers blossoms, which won a prize at the Pla Noche de Reyes 1970. It's time of intense professional and political debates.

In the years following the death of the dictator, Porcel established a cordial relationship with the monarch and Juan Carlos I. "In life you can not act only by rationalism, and is much better to have a king like this than any president."



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