“From Marsé to Mercè”, a literary tour
A walking tour between the Juan Marsé and Mercè Rodoreda libraries that includes dramatized readings also takes in numerous locations of the El Carmel and Guinardó districts that feature in the authors' novels
A literary tour entitled De Marsé a Mercè will start out on Saturday the 25th of April at 11 am from the El Carmel-Juan Marsé Library. The two-hour walking tour ends at the Guinardó- Mercè Rodoreda Library and includes a number of stops for dramatized readings of fragments of the authors’ novels in two districts that featured prominently in their works.
The tour takes in the Juan Ponce gardens, a little further along from the Delicias Bar on the El Carmel road, and continues across the Mühlberg Bridge, located underneath the Turó de la Rovira anti-aircraft emplacements. This, the first part of the tour, will include dramatized readings of the novel that brought Juan Marsé fame, Last Evenings with Teresa, in which the author tells of the relationship between an upper-middle class Catalan society girl and a ‘charnego’ (Southern Spanish immigrant settled in Catalonia) from Barcelona’s El Carmel district towards the end of the 1950s.
The bridge crosses the former Can Baró quarry and links the Turó del Carmel hill and the Park Güell with the Guinardó Park, where the second part of the tour begins. Focussing on the literary works of
Mercè Rodoreda and citing passages from Travels and Flowers and Camellia Street, the tour will offer explanations of phenomena such as the ‘barranquisme’ (slums) of the 50s and 60s around Turó de la Rovira hill. The tour then continues through Parc de les Aigües and finishes up at the Mercè Rodoreda library.
Registration can be made up until the 21st of April.
De Marsé a Mercè literary tour
When: the 25th of April
Tickets: free
Where: Biblioteca del Carmel Juan Marsé
More information here