L'estupor

The Astonishment, following the trail of Inflexios and Breviari d’un bizantí, gather a collection of short essays, most of which can be classified in two blocks: the ones focused on moral and philosophical thought and the ones cantered in the literary criticism and theory. However, these two share one conception: literature as a intellectual adventure which can be identified as a process of questioning and of knowing the reality and the own self, beyond the usual support from the humanistic tradition. This volumes presents a first instalment of the many unpublished manuscripts that Josep Iborra (1929 – 2011) left after his death. Some texts in The Astonishment analyse several aspects related with the literary experience, for example the type of readers, the passivity and the activity in the reading, novel readers, the appearance of the modern reader, the bedhead books, the representation of the reader in the same literature, the presence of great authors in his work, the conversion of reader to writer, the relationship between reading and writing, and between this on and life, etc..

Josep Iborra (Benissa 1929 – 2011) graduated in Law and Philosophy and the Letters and had a PHD on romantic philology which thesis was about Joan Fuster. He was deputy director of ‘Institut  de Ciències de l’Educació’ and a member of ‘Servei de Normalització Lingüística of Universitat de València. He collaborated as a literary critic in several regular publications (Serra d’Or, L’Espill, Saó, El Temps, Reduccions, Caràcters, Revista de Catalunya and others) He published a book of narrative (Paràboles i prou 1955; extended 2^nd Edition 1995) and several instalments of literary criticism like Fuster portàtil (1982, Essay award Joan Fuster 1982), La trinxera literària (1995), Inflexions (2004, VI Essay award Mancomunidad de la Ribera Alta 2004), Breviari d’un bizantí (2007, 17^th Rovira I Virgili de biografias, autobiografías, memorias y dietarios award), Humanisme i nacionalisme en l’obra de Joan Fuster (2012) and Fuster, una declinación personal (2014).