Literature on the human condition—in this case, focusing on the consequences of survival in Nazi concentration camps—includes figures such as Jorge Semprún (Spain’s Minister of Culture under the government of Felipe González) and Imre Kertész (Nobel Prize in Literature laureate). A journey through their works and ideas allows us to engage in a dialogue with the limits of the human condition from two distinct perspectives: that of the communist and that of the Jew. Two ways of confronting horror, overcoming it, and facing the future. Two distinct visions with multiple points of contact. Two attempts to use writing as catharsis.
The speaker holds a Ph.D. in Catalan Philology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Cum Laude), with the first dissertation in Spain on “European Concentration Camp Literature.” He is the founder and director of CILEC (Center for Research on European Concentration Camp Literature). Recognized as a distinguished researcher in the field, he has focused his studies and publications on reflections regarding the relationship between testimony and Holocaust literature: “A Catalan in Mauthausen” (2001), “Women in the Nazi Camps” (2003), and “Spaniards in the Nazi Camps” (2004). He has also researched Franco’s repression in *Dying in Gernika-Lumo* (2004) and *Franco’s Repression in the Canary Islands and North Africa* (forthcoming). He has edited the memoirs of Marcials Mayans, *Such a Long Night*, and of Juan Camacho, *From Barcelona to Montevideo via Mauthausen and Buenos Aires*, *Survivors of Mauthausen*, and the censored manuscripts of Joaquim Amat Piniella: *Les llunyanies, poemes de l’exili* (71 poems written in the camp) and the novel *K.L. Reich*.
He was commissioned by the European Union (2007) to direct and compile the *Dictionnaire Critique de la littérature européenne des camps de concentration et d’extermination nazis*. He has received the Award for Republican Values from the President of the Parliament of Catalonia.