He was a permanent member of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Catalonia [1] and a scholar of medieval aesthetics and literature. He founded the publishing houses Quaderns Crema in 1979 and Editorial Acantilado in 1999 and has been director of both since their inception. As a scholar, his main contribution to the world of letters was a new perspective on the early-twentieth-century avant-garde movements. In the realm of publishing he has launched the brilliant generation of new writers in Catalan, including Quim Monzó, Sergi Pàmies and Empar Moliner. Featuring in his catalogue in Spanish are great classics from the past, a rediscovery he has helped to bring about in the form of new editions – Chateaubriand, James Boswell and Montaigne, for example – along with a considerable number of European authors, from Pessoa, to Imre Kertész, Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth. He has introduced to Spanish readers a considerable number of contemporary Central European writers as well as new talents writing in Spanish.
He published numerous studies on aesthetics and literature and was directly commissioned by the poet J. V. Foix to publish his poetic oeuvre. He also published Junoy’s poetry.[2]
He died in Barcelona.
Prizes
Among the prizes and awards Jaume Vallcorba Plana has received are the following:
FAD (Promotion of the Decorative Arts) Gold Medal (2001)
National Prize for Best Individual Contribution to Publishing, 2002[3]
City Council of Barcelona Gold Medal for Cultural Merit (2004)
Grand Order of Merit for Cultural Contribution, conceded by the Republic of Poland (2005)
Nominee to International Zbigniew Herbert Award First Edition, Poland, 2013
National Prize of Culture, conceded by the Government of Catalonia (2014)
Bibliography
Por orden alfabético. Escritores, editores, amigos, Jorge Herralde (Barcelona, Anagrama, 2006).
Entre paréntesis: ensayos, artículos y discursos, Roberto Bolaño (Barcelona, Anagrama, 2004).
Marilyn McCully, Noucentisme: Picasso, Junoy und der Klassizismus von Barcelona, in Ulrich Weisner (herausgegeben von), Picassos Klassizismus, Stuttgart, Cantz, 1988, p. 43–51.
Aurelio González, review his Lectura de la Chanson de Roland, in Medievalia, 4, 1989, p. 6.
Robert S. Lubar, Cubism, Classicism and Ideology: The 1912 Exposició d'art cubista in Barcelona and French Cubist Criticism, in Elizabeth Cowling and Jennifer Mundy, On Classic Ground, London, Tate Gallery, 1990, p. 309–324. Based on his J. M. Junoy, Obra poética.
Friedrich Wolfzettel, reviews his Lectura de la Chanson de Roland, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, n# 108 (Heft 3/4), 1992, p. 348–351.
Quinze ans de l'édition en Barcelone, doctoral thesis read about his editorial activity at the Grenoble University on December 9, 1995 by the professor Edmond Raillard under the direction of professor Michel Moner.
Arthur Terry, reviews his Noucentisme, Mediterraneisme i Classicisme: apunts per a la història d'una estètica, in Journal of Hispanic Studies, 3 (1994–1995) p. 488–490.
Juan Manuel Bonet, Diccionario de las vanguardias en España 1907–1936, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1995, with multiple references.
Reviews his Noucentisme, Mediterraneisme i Classicisme: apunts per a la història d'una estètica, by Neus Torres, in Revista de Catalunya, n# 107, May 1996, p. 126–127.
Reviews his Noucentisme, Mediterraneisme i Classicisme: apunts per a la història d'una estètica, by Nil Santiáñez-Tió, in España Contemporánea, volume IX, n# 2, autumn 1996, p. 114–117.
Reviews his Noucentisme, Mediterraneisme i Classicisme: apunts per a la història d'una estètica, by Joan Ramon Resina, Hispanic Review, summer 1996.
Reviews his editions of Darrer comunicat and Tocant a mà, from J. V. Foix, by Arthur Terry, in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, LXXIII (1996), p. 455.
