Regàs, Rosa 1933–

PERSONAL: Born 1933, in Barcelona, Spain; married; children: five. Education: Attended college; graduated 1964.

ADDRESSES: Office—National Library of Spain, Paseo de Recoletos, 20, 28071 Madrid, Spain.

CAREER: Writer, publisher, and translator. Seix Barral (publisher), Barcelona, Spain, staff member, 1964–70; also worked for publishing house Edhasa during early career; founder and editor of Editorial La Gaya Ciencia (publisher), beginning 1983; founder and director of Revista Arquitecturas Bis y la Revista Cuadernos de la Gaya Ciencia; freelance translator for the United Nations, 1983–94; Ateneo Americano, Casa de América, Madrid, Spain, director, 1994–98; National Library of Spain, director, 2004–.

AWARDS, HONORS: Premio Nadal Prize, 1994, for Azul; Planeta Award, 2001, for La Canción de Dorotea; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, for Nosotras que nos gueremos tanto; City of Barcelona Prize, for Luna lunera.

WRITINGS:

(Translator) Alan Coren, Arthur el Solitario (juvenile), illustrated by John Astrop, Altea (Madrid, Spain), 1986.

Ginebra, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 1988.

Memoria de Almator, Planeta (Barcelona, Spain) 1991.

Azul (novel; title means "Blue"), Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 1994.

Viaje a la luz del Cham: Damasco, El Cham, un pedazo de tierra en el paraíso, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 1995.

Canciones de amor y de batalla: 1993–1995, El Pais/Aguilar (Madrid, Spain) 1995.

Pobre corazón (title means "Poor Heart"), Ediciones Destino (Madrid, Spain), 1996.

(With Miquel Roca Junyent) Los Nacionalismos en la España democrática: reflexiones 1996, Ediciones Desinto (Barcelona, Spain), 1997.

Nosotras que nos gueremos tanto (novel; title means "We Who Love Each Other So Much"), Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 1997

Genève: portait de ville par une Méditerranéenne, Les Editions Metropolis (Geneva, Switzerland), 1997.

(With Matias Briansó) España: una nueva Mirada, Lunwerg (Barcelona, Spain), 1997.

Desde el mar, Alianza (Madrid, Spain), 1997.

Sombras, nada más, Coordinacion de Difusion Cultural, Direccion de Literatura, UNAM, (Mexico, D.F.), 1998.

(With Gamel Woolsey) Málaga en Llamas, Temas de Hoy (Madrid, Spain), 1998.

Sangre de mi sangre: la aventura de los hijos, Temas de Hoy (Madrid, Spain), 1998.

(Selector and author of prologue) Barcelona, un dia: un llibre de contes de la ciutat / presentación de Pasqual Maragall, Grupo Santillana de Ediciones (Madrid, Spain), 1998.

Más canciones—1995–1998, Prames (Zaragoza, Spain), 1998.

Luna Lunera (novel; title means "Moony Moon"), Plaza & Janes (Barcelona, Spain), 1999.

(Editor and coordinator) De Madrid—al cielo, Much-nik Editores (Barcelona, Spain), 2000.

(Translator) Robert Louis Stevenson, El extraño caso del Dr. Jekyll y Mr. Hyde, Mondadori (Barcelona, Spain), 2000.

La Canción de Dorotea, (novel; title means "Dorothy's Song"), Planeta (Barcelona, Spain), 2001.

Lo que está en mi corazón (novel; title means "What Is in My Heart), Planeta (Barcelona, Spain), 2001.

Per un món millor, prologue by Josep Cuní, Ara Lli-bres (Barcelona, Spain), 2002.

Diario de una abuela de verano, Planeta (Barcelona, Spain), 2004.

Valor de la protesta: el compromiso con la vida, edited by Ignacio Fuentes, Icaria Editorial (Barcelona, Spain), 2004.

(With Pedro Molina Temboury) Volcanes dormidos: un viaje por Centroamérica, Ediciones B (Barcelona, Spain), 2005.

Viento armado, Planeta (Barcelona, Spain), 2006.

Contributor to books, including El cuadro del mes, Fundación Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain), 1997; "Gauche divine," Ministerio de Educacion y Cultura/Lunwer Editores (Spain), 2000; Cuentos de las dos orillas, edited by José Monleón, Fundacion el Legado Andalusi (Granada, Spain), 2001; and Inmenso prostíbulo: mujer y moralidad durante el franquismo, edited by Assumpta Roura, Editorial Base (Barcelona, Spain), 2005; contributor to periodicals, including El País and El Mundo. Several of Regàs's works have been translated into Catalan.

SIDELIGHTS: Rosa Regàs is a well-known Spanish writer and novelist who won the prestigious 2001 Planeta Award, which includes a cash prize of over half a million dollars. Her Planet Award-winning novel, La Canción de Dorotea ("Dorothy's Song") focuses on a household torn apart after a university professor hires a caretaker for her sick father only to have a valuable ring turn up missing soon afterwards. In her novel Azul ("Blue") the author tells the story of Andrea and Martín. The married Andrea is having an affair with the younger Martín in a story that World Literature Today contributor David Ross Gerling compared to "a novella rosa" in that the story on the surface seems banal and unsophisticated. Actually, as Gerling pointed out, the novel showcases Regàs's ability to reveal the inner lives of both characters, even though their love affair is pedestrian in many ways and the characters eventually develop a growing dislike for each other, making them somewhat unsympathetic. In addition, the reviewer praised the author's descriptive passages, including those of the Mediterranean Sea and the Greek isles. Noting the novel's "insanely felicitous combination of high style and pulp fiction," Gerling went on to call the novel "amusingly manipulative, formidably well written, and not least of all, beautiful."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, February 1, 2002, "Rosa Regàs Wins 2001 Planeta Award."

World Literature Today, spring, 1995, David Ross Gerling, review of Azul, p. 331.

ONLINE

Euroresidentes, http://www.euroresidentes.com/ (May 11, 2004), "Rosa Regas Next Director of the National Library of Spain."

Rosa Regàs Home Page, http://www.rosaregas.net (July 1, 2006).

OTHER

Catalan Novelist Rosa Regàs Reads from Her Work and Is Interviewed by Georgette Dorn (sound recording), Library of Congress, 2005.