Born in Palafrugell in 1897, Josep Pla was an extraordinarily prolific writer, critical and moralistic yet highly readable. His immense body of work includes articles on political, social and cultural subjects, reports from abroad, travel books, short stories, novels and more. With his direct, easy style, resembling a chat between friends, Pla cultivated an innovative type of prose that connects with all readers and at the same time possesses a power of description capable of conveying the slightest sensory detail. Pla’s work is a realistic, critical chronicle of 50 years of history, a document that enables us to visualise and understand the doings of Catalonia and its leading figures over the course of several decades. The portrait Pla paints of the Empordanet, the ‘little Empordà’ surrounding his home town, is a priceless aid for comprehending the historical and social evolution of his time, depicted always with his characteristic simplicity, severity and irony. Faced with the greatness of his work, we have to set aside the controversies aroused by his political leanings and acknowledge that no-one else has been capable of relating the everyday chronicle of this land with his detail and realism. Pla died at the family home in Llofriu in 1981.