She did not belong to any group. Fuster preferred to be remembered as a writer and artist who opted to remain on the sidelines of pictorial or intellectual groups, but who was fully inscribed in Catalan tradition. However, her personal relationship with Maria-Mercè Marçal necessarily establishes a relationship of mutual influence: they were friends and had complicity in their projects for fifteen years. They visited each other in Barcelona or in Paris, they sent each other letters and books and corrected their original works. Regarding subsequent influences, among her contemporaries, Joana Raspall took over the use of haiku, a Japanese stanza. Later poetesses, like Dolors Miquel, Mireia Vidal-Conte, Josefa Contijoch, Neus Aguado, Roser Domènech or the artist Roser Suñer identify with Felícia Fuster's voice and defend it as a referent. At an international level, Fuster admired the Belgian writer Marguerite Yourcenar, whose novel The Work in Black (L'oeuvre au noir in French, published in 1968) she translated into Catalan.
Felícia Fuster i Viladecans
Barcelona 07-01-1921 ‖ París 04-03-2012
Period of activity: From 1947 until 1996
Geographical classification: Europe > Spain Europe > France
Socio-cultural movements
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Avant-garde art movements
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Artistic movements since the end of the 19th century > Art since the last third of the 20th century
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Literary and cultural movements since the end of the 19th century > Literature since the last third of the 20th century
Groups by dedication
Popularisers / Cultural promoters > Philanthropists
Writers > Poets
Writers > Story writers
Writers > Essayists
Writers > Translators
Plastic, visual and performing artists > Painters
Plastic, visual and performing artists > Sculptresses
Context of feminine creation
Review
Versatile author, Felícia Fuster is a visual artist, writer, and translator; even though she was put in the spotlight in her maturity, she is considered to be a prominent figure of contemporary Catalan poetry. As a painter, she evolved from Expressionism to Abstract resolutions and exhibited her works in Paris, New York, Barcelona or Madrid. Following her ideals of freedom, she was only interested in "art and language"; she said that other things did not mind. She ironically defined herself as "dona faber", this is a woman who knows all the professions and is applied to all the arts, following an unlimited curiosity.
Justifications
Biography
Felícia Fuster was born in Barcelona on the 7th of January 1921. She spent her childhood at the seashore, in the Barceloneta, "when this district was like a little world or a big house". Her grandparents had an ironmonger's shop that attracted many fishermen, and it was a place where Fuster heard all kinds of Catalan. From her early years, she was interested in words —like her mother— and images. She made "A dins, a fora" for the volume Barceldones (1989), it is the only prose text that she has published. It is made of a part of her childhood memories and learnings.
Apart from formal education from Republican era, Felícia Fuster was educated in the visual arts domain. She took some classes in Massana school for ten years. She studied drawing, painting, engraving and glassmaking. Afterwards, around 1940, she got a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts.
Before that, she lived the Spanish civil war, entirely in Barcelona. She vividly remembers bombing and hunger, but it is moral paucity, the tragedy of "having nothing to hold on to" nor to believe in "at eighteen", what shocked her deeply.
The mediocrity of post-war period and the desire of freedom pushed her to leave Catalonia to seek other ways of living. In 1950 she went to Paris and she moved there one year later. It was not a way of escaping or renouncing, but a courageous and difficult self-assertion. She started from scratch in Paris. Firstly, she taught Spanish, etched glass, and worked in enterprises of publicity. She entered into the business world progressively, up to the point of getting a Bachelor's degree in Economy.
She fully restarted her artist work in the eighties. As she says, finally she could come back "to the way I had prepared", from which she had been pushed aside by “the gust of wind made by the life". From then on, she was only devoted to visual arts and writing.
The entrance into Catalan literature was surprising and shocking, "the satisfaction of a need for first order and an unexpected prodigy to knock the neighbouring corner", as Maria-Mercè Marçal says. In 1983, the collection of poems Una cançó per a ningú i Trenta diàlegs inútils was finalist for the Carles Riba award and became a discovery of an original and mature voice that would then publish other books. It has been said that Felícia Fuster represents a triple recovery: that of a woman's writing in Catalan poetry, that of a voice of the generation of civil war and that of an intimate, strong and untransferable personality.
Felícia Fuster's poetry is characterised by meditation and introspection around existential topics. This topic leads to reflection on poetic language and form. Formal experimentation —popular, avant-garde, or other traditions, especially Japanese tradition— is one of the constants in both her written and pictorial work. It was always from this perspective —subjectivity and formal experimentation— that she faced artistic creation. These exigencies allow her to work in relation to the most real and contemporary history in Versió original(1966), about the Yugoslav wars; this poem refers to the Llibre d'Amic e Amat of Ramon Llull (Catalan classic book) by deconstructing it to adapt it to the content of her poems.
As time goes by, Fuster embraces the philosophy of the Eastern world, especially of the Japanese language which is reflected in her work. She wrote an essay on modern Japanese poetry published in La Revista de Catalunya (1988) and has edited and participated in the translation of the anthology Contemporary Japanese Poetry (1988). Fuster uses also tanka and haiku, traditional forms of Japanese poetry in the books Aquelles cordes al vent (1987) or Postals no escrites (2001). On the other hand, absence, introspection or vacuum are recurrent topics of her work, as evidenced by the titles of some of her poems: Una cançó per a ningú i Trenta diàlegs inútils or Sorra de temps absent, topics that Fuster totally and utterly transmutes. We must remember that Western writing combines language —words— and image —ideograph drawing and paint brush when writing. Literature and visual arts are in the same level, as in Felícia Fuster's work.
She died in Paris on 3rd of March 2012. Her archive is in the Fundació Felícia Fuster, an organisation designed by her that supports the internationalisation of Catalan language and young artists.
Source: https://www.escriptors.cat/autors/fusterf (retrieved on: 09/03/2022).
Works
Prose
(1989). "A dins a fora", dins Barceldones. Barcelona: Edicions de l’Eixample.
Poetry
(1984). Una cançó per a ningú i Trenta diàlegs inútils. Barcelona: Proa.
(1987). Aquelles cordes del vent. Barcelona: Proa.
(1987). I encara. València: Eliseu Climent / 3i4.
(1992). Passarel·les/Mosaïques. Barcelona: Cafè Central. (plaquette) (catalan and french)
(1996). Versió original. València: Germania.
(1998). Sorra de temps absent. Lleida: Pagès
(2001). Postals no escrites. Barcelona: Proa
Anthologies:
Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana, 25-03-2022 https://www.escriptors.cat/autors/fusterf/obra/antologies
Literary criticism or essay:
"La poesia japonesa moderna". Revista de Catalunya, núm. 19, maig de 1988, p. 131-150.
Translations made by the author:
Yourcenar, Marguerite (1984). Obra negra [L'oeuvre au noir]. Barcelona: Proa.
(1988). Poesia catalana contemporània [into japanese][with Naoyuki Sawada]. Tokyo: Shichosha.
(1988). Poesia japonesa contemporània [with Naoyuki Sawada]. Barcelona: Proa.
Translated works:
(1991). Survivors Barcelona: Institute of North American Studies (ed. i trad. Sam Abrams).
Complete works:
(2010). Obra poètica 1984-2001 [a cura de Lluïsa Julià]. Barcelona: Proa.
Others
Artist books
Bibliography
Abrams, Sam (2011). "La closca d’avellana". Epíleg, dins Felícia Fuster: Postals no escrites. Barcelona: Proa.
Altimir, Mercè (2021). “Felícia Fuster, exploradora de l’Orient, pionera en traduir poesia japonesa”, Retrieved on, n. 31, 12-03-2022, http://www.visat.cat/newsletter/article_2016.php?id=31&idArt=166
Cònsul, Isidor (1988). "Felícia Fuster ‘Aquelles cordes del vent', 'I encara'", Serra d'Or, núm. 341, p. 40.
Dito Tubau, Pau (2001). "Poesia per llegir i contemplar", Avui Cultura, 5 de juliol de 2001, p. XI.
Frayssinhes Ribes, Sandrine (2021). «La place de la langue française dans l’œuvre de la poétesse catalane Felícia Fuster (1921-2012)», HispanismeS, n. 18, DOI, 25-03-2022, https://doi.org/10.4000/hispanismes.13760
Hac Mor, Carles (2001). "Haikús que s’esberlen". Avui Cultura, 17 de maig de 2001, p. IX
Julià, Lluïsa (2001). "Felícia Fuster, 'Postals no escrites'", Serra d'Or, núm. 497, maig 2001, pp. 61-62.
Marçal, Maria-Mercè (1984). "Tard, però no pas a deshora", dins Felícia Fuster. Una cançó per a ningú i Trenta diàlegs inútils. Barcelona: Proa.
Parcerisas, Francesc (1987). "Pròleg", dins Felícia Fuster. Aquelles cordes del vent. Barcelona: Proa.
Pauwels, Louis (1977). “Fel, Felícia Fuster”, L’arche de Noé et les naifs, París, M. Fourny.
Ràfols-Casamada, Francesc (2001). "Prefaci", dins Felícia Fuster: Postals no escrites. Barcelona: Proa.
Real, Neus (2004). "Una tradició d’autores catalanes", dins VVAA: 21 escriptores per al segle XXI. Barcelona: Proa.
Socias Palau, Jaume (1992). “Crónica de Barcelona”, Goya. Revista de Arte, núm. 228.
Segarra i Martí, Rosa (1992). “L’obra de Felícia Fuster: subjectiva i suggerent”, DUODA, Revista d’estudis femenins, núm. 3.
Fundació Felícia Fuster, 08-01-2022, https://www.fundacioffuster.org/
Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana, 08-01-2022, https://www.escriptors.cat/autors/fusterf
Didactic approach
1st, 2nd and 3rd of ESO: We can refer to the author when poetry is studied. Haiku and calligrams can be written.
4th of ESO: In the programme of 4th of ESO, avant-garde movements are studied. Haiku, tanka, calligrams and visual poems can be introduced and written.
Felícia Fuster can be studied in the subjects of Catalan, universal and French literature; as well as in visual and plastic arts and introduction to entrepreneurship and business, due to the significance of the Fundació Felícia Fuster that she created.