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Salvador Espriu (1913–1985) has been described by Harold Bloom as “an extraordinary poet by any international standard” and “deserving of a Nobel Prize,” whose work is “preternaturally hushed, haunted by the skeptical wisdom of Job and Ecclesiastics.” The author of nine books of poems whose obscurity beyond Catalonia reflects that of the Catalan in which he wrote, Espriu is an elegiac poet whose work is informed metaphorically by the cataclysm of Franco’s conquest of Catalonia and the suppression of Catalan language and culture. Yet as he eschews mention of specific events and personages, his writing takes on an encompassing resonance.