Illustrated 40th‑anniversary edition of Maria Barbal’s Pedra de tartera released

Columna has issued an illustrated edition to mark the 40th anniversary of Maria Barbal’s Pedra de tartera, with drawings by Áurea López and a script by I. L. Escudero. The new commemorative edition revisits the life of Conxa, a woman from the Pallars, whose story has become one of Barbal’s best known works.

Barbal says the book retains its essence through “historical memory” and hopes the illustrated edition will draw comic readers to the novel’s history, helping them understand “what a war and a postwar mean through the small story of a family.” Pedra de tartera has appeared in roughly seventy editions across different publishers and series and has sold more than 500,000 copies.

Locally, the book is seen as a landmark for literature rooted in the Pyrenees. Isidre Domenjó, president of the Association of the Book of the Pyrenees, argues the novel put the Pallars on the literary map not just as a setting or landscape but as a distinct mountain rural society with clear identity traits. For long‑time readers such as Anna Martí Pellicer, a literature professor and coordinator of one of La Seu’s oldest reading clubs, the novel’s impact lay in its timely appearance: at a moment when the Pyrenees had little visible homegrown literature, Pedra de tartera opened a door to recognition from urban readers. Albert Villaró describes the book as “a revelation” in its time, likening its cultural importance—if in a different setting—to the effect La plaça del Diamant had in Catalan letters.

First published in 1985, the novel is told in the first person by Conxa, who, in old age, revisits her life in a kind of memoir divided into three stages. Set in the Pallars from the early 20th century to the 1960s, the narrative follows events that shape Conxa’s life: the arrival of the Republic, the Civil War, and the early years of Francoism. It also reflects the local realities of poverty, dependence on relatives, the loss of her husband in the Civil War, and the move from rural Pallars to urban Barcelona. The book’s compact form—fewer than 150 pages—and its voice and tension have been widely praised.

Barbal described the novel at the new edition’s presentation as “a very mature child, very happy to be here today.” She noted that an illustrated version can make characters, expressions, landscapes and domestic interiors more concrete; in the original novel, those details were left to each reader’s imagination.

Illustrator Áurea López said one of her main challenges was finding documentation for life in the Pallars around 1915, which differs markedly from Barcelona of the same year. Photographic records of everyday rural activities were scarce; she consulted the Pallars Jussà historical archive but still encountered gaps. López added that the novel reveals Conxa through others’ descriptions, and that her initial conception of Conxa was “a tender person.” She found aging the character convincingly to be the most difficult task.

The first version of the graphic‑novel script was written by I. L. Escudero and reviewed by Barbal.