Montserrat Abelló, born 1918 in Tarragona, Spain, spent her childhood in different parts of Spain and England and studied Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Barcelona. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) she worked as an English teacher and in January 1939, before the end of the war, she went into exile with her family, first fleeing to France and then to London and Chile, where she lived for almost twenty years.
Today I am proud of my time
and pained to fritter it away.
I'm doing nothing, don't sew or iron.
...
Everything is an immense void
I would like to remember so many
names I no longer recall
...