Maria Mercè Roca i Perich (b. Portbou, Spain, July 19, 1958) is a Catalan writer and politician from Spain. She was deputy to the Parliament of Catalonia for Republican Left of Catalonia, and currently serves as a councillor at the City Council of Girona for the same party.
Biography
At age 16, Roca moved to Girona, where she ended up establishing her residence. Although she did not finish her studies on Catalan Philology, she worked for many years as a Catalan teacher. In the mid-1980s, she rose in the Catalan cultural panorama when she was awarded the Víctor Català prize. She continued her literary activity with a number of tales, novels and also a script for the TV series Secrets de família, broadcast by TV3. Her career has always had a lot of success, both with literary prizes and translations into several languages, including Spanish, Basque, French, German and Dutch.
Roca is vice-president of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana.
She is always been active in politics –she was deputy at the Parliament of Catalonia, where she was President of the Culture Commission (2007-2010)– for Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) party between 2003 and 2010.
She was a candidate to the City council of Girona for (ERC) at the 2015 Spanish municipal elections, where ERC got 4 councillors, among which Roca was one of them.
Roca was one of the promoters of the platform Sobirania i Progrés. In 2022 she was appointed dean of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, a public body promoting catalan literature.
Work
Short stories
1986 Ben Estret
1986 Sort que hi ha l'horitzó
1987 El col·leccionista de somnis
1988 La veu del foc
1988 Capitells
1994 L'escrivent i altres contes
2001 Contes personals: Tria a cura de Carles Cortès
2006 Kenitra
Novels
1987 Els arbres vençuts
1987 El present que m'acull
1988 Perfum de nard
1988 Com un miratge
1990 La casa gran
1990 Temporada baixa
1992 Greuges infinits
1993 Cames de seda
1998 L'àngel del vespre
1999 Temps de perdre
2000 Delictes d'amor
2002 Una mare com tu
2003 L'últim tren
2005 Els dies difícils
2011 Bones Intencions
Non-fiction
2001 El món era a fora (interviews) 2005 Coses que fan que la vida valgui la pena