Adrià Targa
Invitado de Honor
Adrià Targa spent his childhood and adolescence between this city and the Sant Pere i Sant Pau neighbourhood, which features in the long poem Acròpolis (Acropolis). He studied classical philology at the University of Barcelona while also organising cultural activities at the now-closed Ramon Llull student residence. At 21 he published his first book of poems, L’exili de Constança (The Exile of Constança) (2008), inspired by Ovid’s imagined exile. This was followed by Boques en calma (Calm Mouths), Ícar (Icarus) (2015) – available in full online via the digital magazine Stroligut – the pamphlet Liorna (2015), Canviar de cel (Changing Sky) (2021), Acròpolis (Acropolis) (2024) and Arnau (2024), the latter a novel in verse exploring the final day in the life of a thirty-year-old man haunted by the ghosts of depression, sex, drugs and poetry. He has received major awards including the Gabriel Ferrater Prize in Sant Cugat, the Vicent Andrés Estellés Prize in Burjassot, the Barcelona Jocs Florals for Acròpolis and most recently the Catalan Poetry Critics’ Prize for Arnau, a work described by the jury as ‘a visionary work that has stirred readers of Catalan poetry and drawn the attention of critics, who have acknowledged its singular importance for an entire generation.’
Other activities involving the participant:
An argument called desire