This Thursday Joaquim Mallafr\u00e8 passed away at the age of 82. He was a lecturer in the Department of Catalan Studies when the URV was founded, and also of the UB division in Tarragona, until he retired in 2006. Mallafr\u00e9 translated works by universal authors such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Rudyard Kipling, and Laurence Sterne into Catalan.<\/p>\n
James Joyce’s Ulysses<\/em>\u00a0and Dubliners<\/em>, Samuel Beckett’s complete theatrical works and such great English classics as Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones<\/em>\u00a0and Laurence\u00a0Sterne’s Tristram Shandy<\/em> can be read in Catalan thanks to his translations. He explained that his interest in\u00a0Ulysses<\/em>\u00a0was aroused by what he read in text books on literature, which described Joyce’s work as a milestone of the 20th century. But it was unavailable in Franco’s Spain. It was through this translation that he discovered that Catalan, his first language, could be used for all purposes.<\/p>\n Mallafr\u00e8 graduated in Philosophy and Arts in 1964 at the UB, worked as a lecturer in Ludlow (England) in the academic year 1967-1968 and obtained his PhD in Romance Studies at the UB in 1988. He taught English in a secondary school and then at university, where he combined his career as a translator with his academic duties until he became one of the foremost linguists in Catalan and European universities.<\/p>\n He joined the Institute for Catalan Studies in 1991, and was awarded the Catalan Saint George\u2019s Cross in 1998 and the City Medal of the Reus City Council in 2007 for his work as a translator and lecturer and his commitment to Catalan culture.<\/p>\n