Victòria Penya i Nicolau was born in Palma, Mallorca, on 23 March 1827, in a large family and with a passion for literature. She began writing when she was fourteen years old and at seventeen years old she was part of the group of Majorcan students who published the magazine El Plantel. She married writer Miguel Victorià Amer and, therefore, sometimes signed her poems as Victòria Penya d'Amer. In 1959, she moved to Barcelona because of her husband’s work and, there, she got involved in cultural circles that promoted the Renaissance and participated in the first Floral Games held in Barcelona (1959), where her poem Anyorança was awarded.  

She will be one of the first women to participate in this contest, along with Josepa Massanés, with whom she will establish a great friendship. She is one of the first authors to demonstrate her dual status as a woman and writer in Catalan, that is, an integral part of a culture that begins to become aware of one's own tradition. She publishes in several magazines in Catalunya and Mallorca and she is also an honorary partner of the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona.  

In her poems, Victòria Penya identifies the homeland with the land where the ancestors rest, with the landscape and nature; also with popular culture, which serves as inspiration, or with language, which she dignifies through poetry. The evocation of historical facts and characters (such as Ramon Llull in the poem "Desig"), love (in the poem "Sempre amb tu"), family ("Lo meu niu"), religiousness or friendship are some of the elements that appear often in her poems.   

Victòria Penya was recognized by her contemporaries, but her successful participation in numerous contests and the publication of almost all of her poems also aroused suspicion. For example, Miquel dels Sants Oliver claimed that her style was "determined and masculine", qualities he considered positive, but he underestimated her because, in his opinion, Penya had subjected her poetry in excess to the demands of the Floral Games — which is why she won many awards — and, therefore, he considered that she did not manage "to get out of the category of being a poetess, to enter frankly into the only and superior one of being a poet".   

The writer Francesc Matheu offered her a posthumous homage and in 1909 he published much of his work under the title Poesies de Victòria Peña d'Amer.  

Source: Peñarrubia, Isabel and Alomar, M. Magdalena (2010). "De mi no en fan cas...". Vindicació de les poetes mallorquines (1865-1936), Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.  

This author can be studied in literary education in different courses:  

- 4th of ESO: contemporary literature, Reinaissance, Escola mallorquina.  

- 1st of ESO: personification, rhetorical question, rhyme.  

- 2nd of ESO: meta-literary reflection.