Enric Valor i Vives
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Enric Valor i Vives (born 1911 in Castalla, l'Alcoià; died 2000 in Valencia) was a Valencian narrator and grammarian who made one of the most important contributions to the re-collection and recovery of Valencian lexicography, and was one of the principal promoters of the standardization of Catalan in the Land of Valencia, Spain.
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[edit] Biography
Enric Valor was born in 1911, the son of an affluent family from Castalla, in the Valencian county of l'Alcoià. In 1930, at the age of nineteen, he became a journalist in Alicante writing in the satirical newspaper El Tio Cuc, in Valencian. During the Second Spanish Republic he was active as a politician. His main demand was for autonomous status for the Valencian Country, and also establishing Alicante as being Catalan. He was also at this time working on nationalist newspapers of the City of Valencia: La República de les Lletres, El Camí, El País Valencià. When the Spanish Civil War broke out he supported the Spanish Republic.
After the war, he cut back on his political activities to concentrate on literature. At the beginning of the 1950s he started to publish "rondalles", a type of popular tale typical of Catalan/Valencian culture, which appeared in Rondalles valencianes (1950-1958). During the 1960s he returned to underground political activities involving Valencian nationalism and, as a result, he became a political prisoner of Francisco Franco's dictatorship from 1966 to 1968. Once out of prison and, in his own words, "no lesson hasn't been learnt", he founded almost the first magazine in Valencian in the postwar period; Gorg ("Whirl", in Valencian). When Franco's dictatorship ended, Enric Valor was be able to spread freely his opinions and literary works. He began to be honoured with many important literary and linguistic awards from all over the Catalan-speaking countries. During the 1990s there was a move among Valencian society and cultural groups to propose Valor as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he died suddenly in 2000. Today, streets, squares, schools, and associations throughout the Land of Valencia are named after him.
[edit] Linguistic works
His first linguistic work was in the weekly magazine El Tio Cuc based in Alicante, which was written in Spanish-ised Catalan, and with spelling mistakes, but gradually at the same time Valor was incorporating Catalan orthography and grammar lessons into his writings. He was contributing to the development of the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic Dictionary (such an Catalan inter-dialectal dictionary) under the directorship of Francesc de Borja Moll, which included a Southern Valencian lexicon. Like Carles Salvador and Sanchis Guarner, he was one of the principal promoters of the standardisation of Catalan in the Land of Valencia where Pompeu Fabra's grammar was spread, through works such as Curs de la llengua valenciana (Gorg, 1961), Millorem el llenguatge (1971), and Curso medio de gramática catalana referida especialmente al País Valenciano (1973).
In 1983 he released La flexió verbal where he put into order the widely dialectised Valencian verbs. This work became the principal reference for the normative use of verbs, and is used as essential teaching material for Valencian pupils. Besides that, one must point out the rich lexicography derivable from his literary works, specially from his rondalles, which collect lexicons and legends from many Valencian counties.
[edit] Literary works
His most known work is Rondalles valencianes (1950-1958), where 36 valencian popular tales are collected as a literary narration. Other works with a similar style are Narracions de la Foia de Castalla (1953), and Meravelles i picardies (1964-1970). His first novel was L'ambició d'Aleix which was started between the 1940s and 1950s, but it was being re-written until its release in 1960. Perhaps his most important novel work is Cicle de Cassana which is made up of three novels: Sense la terra promesa (1960), Temps de batuda (1983), and Enllà de l'horitzó (1991). The Cicle de Cassana trilogy aims for the regaining of collective memory between 1916 and 1939, that had been repressed and kept hidden because of the dictatorship. In 1982 he published La idea de l'emigrant.
[edit] Awards and honors
- 1983, Sanchis Guarner's Award (Premi Sanchis Guarner), from the Valencia Province Council.
- 1985, Valencian Arts Award (Premi de les Lletres Valencianes) from Valencia City Council.
- 1986, Member of the Philological Department in the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.
- 1987, Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (Catalan Arts Honored Award) from the Òmnium Cultural de Barcelona.
- 1987, Member of the Advisory Board in the Interuniversitary Institute of Valencian Philology (Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana).
- 1993, Honoris Causa Doctor by the Universitat de València.
- 1993, Saint George's Cross (Creu de Sant Jordi) from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
- 1996, Miquelet d'Honor from the Societat Coral El Micalet, de Valencia.
- 1997, Premi Cavanilles from the Valencian Instute of Nature and Hiking (Institut Valencià d'Excursionisme i Natura).
- 1998, Honoris Causa Doctor by the Universitat de les Illes Balears.
- 1999, Honoris Causa Doctor by the Universitat Jaume I from Castelló.
- 1999, Honoris Causa Doctor by the Universitat d'Alacant.
- 1999, Honoris Causa Doctor by the Universitat Politècnica de València.
