Author Archives: César López Rodríguez

Canadian author Alice Munro has died at the age of 92

Munro, a 2013 Nobel Prize winner for literature,  wrote short stories for more than 60 years, often focusing on life in rural Canada. She died at her home in Port Hope, Ontario on Monday night.

“Alice Munro is a national treasure – a writer of enormous depth, empathy, and humanity whose work is read, admired, and cherished by readers throughout Canada and around the world,” Kristin Cochrane, the CEO of Penguin Random House Canada, said in a statement.

Her first successful work came in 1968, when her short story collection, Dance of The Happy Shades, about life in the suburbs of western Ontario, won the Governor General’s Award.

Munro has published thirteen collections of stories as well as one novel, Lives of Girls and Women, and two volumes of Selected Stories.

In 1977, the New Yorker magazine published one of Munro’s stories, Royal Beatings, based on punishments she received from her father when she was young. She went on to have a long relationship with the publication.

Munro, the daughter of a fox farmer and a schoolteacher, was born in 1931 in Wingham, Ontario. Many of her stories are set in the area and chronicle the region’s people, culture and the way of life.

“Having been born in 1931, I was a little old, but not too old, and women like me after a couple of years were wearing miniskirts and prancing around,” she said.

One well-known story, The Bear Came Over the Mountain, was made into the 2006 film Away from Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.

In 2009, Munro won the Man Booker Prize International Prize for lifetime achievement. The judges said in a statement at the time: “To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before.”

She later won the Nobel Prize in 2013. Previous winners include literary giants such as Rudyard Kipling, Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway. The Nobel committee called Munro a “master of contemporary short story”. Munro said in an interview with the Guardian in 2013 that she had been “writing personal stories all my life”.

Her last collection of stories, Dear Life, was published in 2012. It included a collection of partly-autobiographical stories. Our students at Escola Oficial d’Idiomes in La Seu d’Urgell can find this book in our library.

Poetry Session for A2 Students at the Library

Our A2 students from César López’s group in La Seu d’Urgell gathered in the library last Monday 8th to enjoy a poetry session. Although poetry sounds like a difficult genre for beginners, it is actually a very interesting one because it is more free than prose when it comes to grammar and it allows students to experiment with words, sounds, rhyme and rhythm.

We read A Poison Tree, by William Blake, Do not go gentle into that good night, by Dylan Thomas, and an extract from a children’s poetry book by Dr. Seuss called Fox in Socks as a way to inspire students before they write their own poem for our Sant Jordi poetry contest. We ended our session listening to a fun rap version of Fox in Socks that you can listen to here.

B2.2 Students from Àlex Graupera’s Group in La Seu d’Urgell Visit Our Library

Last Thursday, 1st of April, B2.2 students from Àlex Graupera’s group in La Seu d’Urgell visited the library to choose their second reading for the current course. Among the chosen titles are A Man in Love by the Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard; Angela’s Ashes by the Irish writer Frank McCourt; Born a Crime by South African writer Trevor Noah; Normal People by the Irish author Sally Rooney.

Els monogràfics de la biblioteca

La biblioteca de l’Escola Oficial d’Idiomes ha organitzat aquest primer trimestre de curs diversos monogràfics per donar a conèixer el seu fons. En destaquen tres: el monogràfic sobre la lectura a principi de curs, el de distòpies el mes de novembre i el de Nadal aquest mes de desembre.

Pel que fa al monogràfic sobre lectura, d’entre els més de vint llibres de què disposem, volem mencionar-ne tres en francès, Comme un roman, de Daniel Pennac, La Reine des lectrices, d’Alan Bennet, i La Révolte des accents, d’Erik Orsenna, i tres en anglès, The Book Thief, de Markus Zusak, The Uncommon Reader, d’Alan Bennet, i Fahrenheit 451, de Ray Bradbury.

El monogràfic sobre distòpies va lligat a la programació dels cinemes Guiu de La Seu d’Urgell, que enguany està programant pel·lícules d’aquest gènere. A la biblioteca trobareu joies d’aquest gènere com ara Brave New World (Un món feliç en català), d’Aldous Huxley, un dels primers autors de novel·la distòpica, 1984 i Animal Farm, ambdues de George Orwell, I, Robot, d’Isaac Asimov i The Handmaid’s Tale, de Margaret Atwood, entre d’altres.

Finalment, com cada any, la biblioteca exposa un seguit de llibres i pel·lícules de temàtica nadalenca per inspirar tothom que hi vingui i l’alumnat s’endugui entreteniment en la llengua que estudia. Mireu la imatge de l’article i escolliu la vostra història!

Bones festes!

Obertura de la biblioteca

Després d’unes obres de manteniment portades a terme a l’edifici, la biblioteca de l’Escola Oficial d’Idiomes de La Seu d’Urgell ha obert les portes el mes de novembre. Els docents han organitzat activitats diverses per donar-ne a conèixer el fons bibliogràfic, que inclou una àmplia selecció de llibres, revistes, pel·lícules i sèries en anglès, francès i fins i tot en alemany.

Hi ha hagut grups que han aprofitat la visita per conversar sobre els seus llibres favorits i reflexionar sobre la lectura, d’altres van escollir un llibre de la nostra biblioteca per gaudir del plaer de llegir per llegir i els més atrevits van participar a l’activitat Words Travel Worlds / Enlivrez-vous !, una plataforma virtual on els participants es graven llegint l’inici del llibre que havien escollit.

La biblioteca de l’Escola Oficial d’Idiomes de La Seu d’Urgell és a la vostra disposició dilluns (18:00 a 19:00), dimarts (de 18:00 a 20:00) i dimecres (17:00 a 19:00) i podeu fer reserves anticipades de documents a través de l’adreça biblioteca@eoilaseu.cat.