Pere Antoni Pons

Quatre històries entre Mallorca i el món

INFORMATION

The four texts that make up this volume are journalistic. Therefore, they were written with the intention of making known to potential readers - both from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands - the stories of three characters and of a movement that have their starting point on the island of Mallorca but that branch out, or have connections. Hence the title, Quatre històries entre Mallorca i el món (Four Stories between Mallorca and the World), which could be more eye-catching, but not - I think - more exact.

The protagonists of the four stories gathered here are the pacifist mystic Joan Carrero Saralegui (Arjona, Jaén, 1951), known for his denunciations of the official lies about the Rwandan genocide and for his campaigns to stop the humanitarian catastrophe plaguing the Great Lakes region of Africa; the architect Josep Ferragut Pou (Palma, Mallorca, 1912-1968), who was one of the main modernizers of the island architecture, the work and the work of which have been blurred by the scandal of his scabrous assassination; the composer Matilde Escalas y Xamena (Santanyí, 1870-Palma, 1936), a woman who committed the temerity of being talented and daring at a time when talent and audacity were qualities that were deceitfully monopolised by men; and, last but not least, the Cursillos in Christianity, the apostolic movement that was founded by Eduard Bonnin and Aguiló with the aim of re-Christianising Mallorcan society and that, gradually, spread around the globe, to the point that today it is present on all five continents.