Issue date: 23 Apr, 2021
PERSONAGES. Antoni Morell
Water, winds, stone and time are the four brushstrokes with which Antoni Morell captured the identity of the people of Andorra, adding human beings as the most important element of all, the one which integrates the others and forges their identity.
The death of Antoni Morell i Mora on 5 January 2020 was the loss of a profoundly humanist intellectual, who throughout his life thought deeply about society, history, and the people of Andorra.
This thought was enriched by his many-sided personality, which drove him to be a professor, lawyer, politician, ambassador, and above all, a writer of novels, essays, and articles in all sorts of media.
Considered the father of modern Andorran literature, his three best-known novels are Set lletaníes de mort; Borís I, rei d’Andorra, and La neu adversa, making up a composite portrait of traditional Andorran society, based on the home, the landscape and rigorous climate of the high mountains, and a subsistence economy.
His work received many awards, including the Premi Carlemany, the Premi Sant Miquel d’Engolasters, and the Premi Manel Cerqueda. His literary career enabled him to become friends with other writers, such as Salvador Espriu, Agustí Bartra, and Miquel Martí i Pol, among others.
Antoni Morell was born in Barcelona in 1941. His father was a taxi driver from Alpicat (Lleida), and his mother was from Andorra, entitling him to that nationality. He attended several religious seminaries in Barcelona, where he acquired a wide-ranging humanist education, and was ordained as a deacon. He later continued his studies in philosophy and modern and contemporary history at Zaragoza University. He began work as a teacher until 1973 when he was appointed Secretary General of the Sindicatura, part of the government of Andorra. He was one of the fathers of the process of “Andorranising” the Principality, and led the foundation of the National Archive, the National Library, and the Institute of Andorran Studies. In 1981 he became Secretary General of the first Government of Andorra, and from 2005 to 2010 he acted as extraordinary ambassador and plenipotentiary of the Principality at the Vatican.
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