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Martí Domínguez
Who I Am and Why I Write
Martí Domínguez
The fact is that everything — or just about everything — is
part of my literary activity. My interest in biology and
history of art, my vocation as a journalist, my work as a
novelist, all of it somehow links up and, from the different connections, I keep getting a written return.
There is no lived "material" that doesn't somehow "materialise": the writer has a bit of the cast-iron
worker in him and keeps forging a collage, here and there, of his experiences.
Right now, I'm finishing the third novel of a trilogy devoted to the Enlightenment (preceded by novels
on Buffon and Goethe), which describes the last years of one of the most important writers of the Age
of Enlightenment. I'm especially interested in the wavering and contradictory man but also the
banished writer, hounded even after his death; in the implacable persecution suffered by freethinkers
(which we Valencians understand so well) in a world marked by obscurity and superstition. It is a
novel that seeks to inquire more deeply into the exile of an intellectual, the ferocious daily struggle of
the outsider, of the idealist. Now I'm also working on my next novel, which is of a different nature and
set in the city of Valencia, in my own time.
In the field of the essay, I'm particularly attracted to nature and its relationship with man. My articles in
the weekly El Temps (now collected into two books, Peiximinuti [Small Fry] and Bestiari [Bestiary])
attempt to look into these relations in a sort of glossary of nature studded with literary perceptions,
scientific discoveries and artistic nuance. Here, I'm chiefly interested in the relationship that is
established between art and science, especially in the age of the Renaissance. I've been working in
this domain with a series of articles I'd like to expand and turn into a book at some future date.
However, in the background, more than the investigative inducement, is pure narrative aspiration.
What I love is the act, the phenomenon of writing, and communicating a way of understanding life. It
is this impulse – this compulsion – that incites me to write, and to live too.
It's been said...
Martí Domínguez's novels have marked out a new space in Catalan literature. In this regard, it might
be interesting to compare Les confidències del comte de Buffon [The Confidences of Count Buffon]
with Antoni Marí's El camí de Vincennes [The Way to Vincennes], or with Alfred Bosch's L'atles furtiu
[The Furtive Atlas], which was constructed around the figure of Abraham Cresques, author of The
Catalan Atlas. In Les confidències del comte de Buffon, Martí Domínguez expands on the tensions
between different personalities and scientific schools, although the nucleus of the story is not so much
ideas as personalities. He writes in an expository style and presents the different theories literally,
nuancing them with the views of the narrator who is looking back over his life. As in a historical novel
of scientific bent, he pulls together a great deal of information and news of the times, composing
scenes that make one relive the moment and drawing the reader's attention towards everyday life.
Rarely has this been achieved with more naturalness and rigour. Historical facts, presented with total
modesty, are more appealing than great discourses and flights of the imagination. From this
standpoint, Martí Domínguez's work can be read as a sort of countercurrent literary manifesto. The
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Literary news about Martí Domínguez in lletrA, the UOC's virtual space devoted to Catalan literature
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main character of Joan Perucho's Les histories naturals [Natural History] is a scientist who seeks
security in the rational order of the world and, who through contact with the supernatural, discovers
poetry. Buffon, Tischbein and Goethe are vital, passionate characters who find in observation and
study a way to establish a niche in the world and fulfil themselves as men. Buffon, who discovers his
humanity in disciplined, patient labour, is the best-rounded character, a new kind of hero who bases
his grandeur in measurement. Tischbein introduces an element of imbalance, fear of the future and
doubts as to his own ability, while Goethe appears as a creation of the painter trapped by his own
contingency. Will the third part of the trilogy delve further into this imbalance to tip us wholly into
modern times?
I imagine Martí Domínguez as one of the explorers he describes in his novels, like that Malpertuis
who returned from his journey to the North Pole dressed as a Lapp, or like La Condamine who, after
his travels around the Mediterranean, turned up in Paris disguised as a Turk. Les confidències del
comte de Buffon and Els secrets de Goethe are stories of transformation, fruit of a journey through
history in search of full possession of the theme that Buffon in his Discours sur le style [Discourse on
Style] considered to be one of the essential requisites of "good writing". Then again, there is pleasure,
and a liking for facetiousness, which are the raison d'être of fiction.
Julià Guillamon, "Martí Domínguez torna a València vestit de lapó", Caràcters, Nº. 27 (April 2004).
Martí Domínguez's article writing (in particular the pieces brought together in the book) almost always
starts out from nature, bringing to bear his command of zoology and botany. With this sustained
preordained standpoint, one might fear he could fall into the trap of the monotony of flat reportage.
Not in the least. Domínguez does not restrict himself to being an expert who writes good prose but he
is also a singularly gifted landscape artist and a precise auscultator of the emotions that might be
roused in the human spirit by contemplation of alien life, en plein air. Here, he might rival the best
masters of description in Catalan literature, putting together, with a few masterly strokes, small verbal
gems of dazzling plasticity. He knows this and is reinvigorated, with a touch of festive coquetry, in
such perfect articles as "El vol dels ocells" [Flight of the Birds], which both renders homage and is an
example of this art of capturing in words the ephemeral and moving beauty of life. It is a joy to
recognise in his pages the fragrance of flowers, the thousand nuances of the flight and song of birds,
the fidgety darting of fish, the rustling of the breeze through reeds and the dance of poppies, which
are his enamoured and jovial testimony, a great act of celebration of the beauty and glorious variety
of the world around us.
I believe that, taken as a whole, Martí Domínguez's essays are a constant celebration of the beauty of
the natural world and the works of the human spirit, and also a reminder that they can work together
harmoniously, in the pleasure of art and in scientific research. Again, he does not shun confrontation
– although his approach is generally rather oblique – with present-day issues, whether it is violence
wreaked on the land or the destruction of our heritage. What consistently leaps out of these articles is
Domínguez's love for the Valencia region, which he has covered from one end to the other and knows
in minute detail. Many texts are steeped in sadness over the destruction of beautiful settings, of so
many places that were once full of life, which we've had to endure as impotent observers in recent
years. This desolation gives succinct, captivating intensity to the text titled "Vora el barranc dels
Algadins" [By the Algadins Ravine].
His innuendos are frequently of a depth that irony does not totally disable. Among all of Martí
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Literary news about Martí Domínguez in lletrA, the UOC's virtual space devoted to Catalan literature
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Domínguez's articles, one of my favourites, and unquestionably the one that touches me most, is
called "La candela del rei" [King's Candle] which speaks of the gorgeous exuberance of the white
mullein growing around Johann Sebastian Bach's house in Eisenach, in which Domínguez wanted to
see a homage rendered by humanised, sublime and joyous nature to the most exalted of all
composers, the king of musicians. In this page imbued with judiciously contained lyricism, the deep
harmony between nature and art for which his prose tirelessly quests is transformed into an emblem.
Enric Sòria, "Entre natura i art", Caràcters, Nº. 27 (April 2004).
The author
Life
WEB: Martí Domínguez in the Institut Ramon Llull
Biobibliographical note, in Catalan, English and German, on this author on a page devoted to the
Frankfurt Book Fair 2007.
http://www.frankfurt2007.cat/cat/escriptors/dominguez.shtml
Works and translations
WEB: Martí Domínguez's translated works
In the TRAC database, from Institut Ramon Llull.
http://www.llull.cat/english/quiesqui/trac_traduccions.cfm
WEB: Works in the Biblioteca de Catalunya
http://cataleg.bnc.cat/search*eng/?searchtype=a&searcharg=Dom%C3%ADnguez+Romero+Mart%
C3%AD&sortdropdown=-&searchscope=13&searchscope2=13&SORT=D
WEB: The author in the Who's Who of Catalan Literature
http://www.lletrescatalanes.cat/en/index-d-autors/item/dominguez-romero-marti
WEB: The author in The European Library
http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/search?query=marti%20dominguez%20romero
WEB: The author in the Congress Library (US)
http://lletra.uoc.eduhttps://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchType=7&searchId=25848&maxResul
tsPerPage=25&recCount=25&recPointer=0&resultPointer=0&
WEB: The author in the COPAC Catalogue (UK)
http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/search?author=Domi%CC%81nguez%2C%20Marti%CC%81.
WEB: Martí Domínguez in WorldCat
Bibliographical information in the union catalog from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=%22mart%C3%AD+dom%C3%ADnguez+romero%22&qt=results
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If you want to cite this page...
Literary news about Martí Domínguez in lletrA, the UOC's virtual space devoted to Catalan literature
< http://lletra.uoc.edu/en/author/marti-dominguez >
_page
A selection of texts
Text
WEB: Martí Domínguez en Google Books
http://lletra.uoc.eduhttps://www.google.es/webhp?gfe_rd=cr&ei=rGQTWO_5KIrA8gfB1ZxA#q=inauth
or:mart%C3%AD+dom%C3%ADnguez&tbm=bks
Reviews and interviews
Reviews
WEB: Martí Domínguez in AELC (Association of Catalan Language Writers)
Includes biography, works, prizes, interviews and extracts of some of his works.
http://www.escriptors.cat/autors/dominguezm/pagina.php?id_sec=3155
PDF: The failure
Information about this novel and its author in the brochure New Catalan Fiction 2013-2014 (Institut
Ramon Llull).
http://llull.cat/IMAGES_2/newcatalanfiction2013-2014.pdf#page=9
Miscellaneous
WEB: In ResearchGate
Information about the research profile of Martí Domínguez.
http://lletra.uoc.eduhttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marti_Dominguez
The author 2.0
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In the social network
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WEB: In Twitter
Tweets by MartiDominguezR
http://lletra.uoc.eduhttps://twitter.com/martidominguezr
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