Editing Mercè Rodoreda (section)

===Childhood (1908-1921)===
Mercè Rosa Rodoreda i Gurguí was born on October 10, 1908, at 340 ''[[carrer de Balmes, Barcelona]]''<ref>[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-5J8Y-M?i=2752&cc=2015324&cat=636896 The Barcelona City Council Birth Registration book], indicates that she was born on October 18, not on October 10.</ref> Her parents were Andreu Rodoreda, from [[Terrassa]] and Montserrat Gurguí, from [[Maresme]].<ref>[http://www.tvcatalunya.com/aleph/rodoreda/cronolog.htm tvcatalunya.com] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080708232433/http://www.tvcatalunya.com/aleph/rodoreda/cronolog.htm |date=July 8, 2008 }}</ref> Both were lovers of literature and theater and had attended recital classes taught by [[Adrià Gual]] at the School of Dramatic Art (which would later become the [[Institut del Teatre|Institute of Theater]]).<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Chronology (1908-1921) |url=http://www.mercerodoreda.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=310&languageId=1&contentId=-1 |url-status=dead |access-date=2021-07-18 |archive-date=2010-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100930123823/http://www.mercerodoreda.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=310&languageId=1&contentId=-1 }}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Rodoreda theatrical |url=http://www.ducros.biz/corpus/index.php?command=show_news&news_id=3599 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Her mother also had an interest in music.<ref name=":0" />

Her parents' financial problems forced her to leave school at age nine,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Vosburg |first1=Nancy |editor1-last=Gould Levine |editor1-first=Linda |editor2-last=Engelson Marson |editor2-first=Ellen |editor3-last=Feiman Waldman |editor3-first=Gloria |title=Merce Rodoreda |date=1993 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Connecticut |isbn=9780313268236 |page=413 |edition=1st |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RGcbAQAAIAAJ&q=spanish+women+writers+a+bio+bibliographical+source+book |access-date=11 October 2018}}</ref> from 1915 to 1917 at the Lurdes School in the [[Sarrià, Barcelona|Sarrià neighborhood]] and from 1917 to 1920 at the ''Nuestra Señora de Lourdes'' center, which was closest to her home, on Calle de Padua, at the height of the street of Vallirana. Later she went to an academy where she studied only French and business arithmetic.

Her maternal grandfather, Pere Gurguí, was an admirer of [[Jacint Verdaguer]] (of whom he had been a friend) and had collaborated as an editor in the magazines ''La Renaixensa'' and ''L'Arc de Sant Martí''.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Mercè Rodoreda: un viatge entre paraules i flors. (Mercè Rodoreda: a trip between words and flowers.) |url=http://www.mercerodoreda.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=305&languageId=1&contentId=-1 |url-status=dead |access-date=2021-07-18 |archive-date=2010-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100930123807/http://www.mercerodoreda.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=305&languageId=1&contentId=-1 }}</ref> In 1910, Pere Gurguí had a monument in memory of Jacint Verdaguer erected in the garden of his house that bore an engraving with the title of the two most important works of the author, ''Canigó'' and ''[[L'Atlàntida]]''; that place became the space for parties and family gatherings.<ref name=":1" /> The figure of her grandfather marked her intensely and she came to consider him her teacher. Gurguí instilled in her a deep Catalan feeling, and a love for the Catalan language and flowers that were well reflected throughout Mercè Rodoreda's work.

{{blockquote|I remember the feeling of being at home when, leaning over the railing of the roof, I saw the blue flowers of the jacaranda fall on the grass and the hydrangeas. I will never know how to explain it; I have never felt more at home than when I lived at my grandfather's house with my parents.<ref>Rodoreda Gurguí, Mercè «Imatges d'infantesa». Serra d'Or, XXIV, 1982.</ref> |Mercè Rodoreda, ''Imatges d'infantesa'' (Images of childhood)}}

On May 18, 1913, when she was only five years old, she performed for the first time in a play playing the role of the girl Kitty in ''The Mysterious Jimmy Samson'', at the ''Torrent de les Flors'' theater. Years later, this character was, in a certain way, recovered for the story ''The bathroom'', within the work ''Twenty-two stories''.<ref name=":2" />

During her childhood she read all the classic and modern Catalan authors, such as Jacint Verdaguer, [[Ramon Llull]], [[Joan Maragall]], [[Josep Maria de Sagarra]] and [[Josep Carner]], among others, surely influenced by the bohemian atmosphere that was breathed in her family's home.<ref name=":1" />

On May 30, 1920, she participated in the drama ''Fifteen Days of Reign'' at Lourdes School. In the same act she also read the poem in Catalan called ''La negra''.<ref name=":18">{{Cite web |date=2016-03-03 |title= |url=http://www.escriptors.cat/autors/rodoredam/cronoteatre.pdf |access-date=2021-07-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180726/http://www.escriptors.cat/autors/rodoredam/cronoteatre.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-03 }}</ref>

In 1921, her uncle Juan moved in with the family and changed the lifestyle of all its members, imposing austerity and conventional order. She had idealized him as a result of the letters she had previously received and ended up marrying him<ref name=":0" /> on October 10, 1928, her twentieth birthday, in the [[Sant Gervasi – la Bonanova|church of Bonanova]]. He was fourteen years older than her and, due to the degree of [[consanguinity]], they needed a [[papal dispensation]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Chronology (1928-1938) |url=http://www.mercerodoreda.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=311&languageId=1&contentId=-1 |url-status=dead |access-date=2021-07-18 |archive-date=2010-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100930130703/http://www.mercerodoreda.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=311&languageId=1&contentId=-1 }}</ref>