Voices of the Old Sea
Norman Lewis

After the war was over, Norman Lewis, settled in a remote fishing village on the Catalan coast. A place where men regulated their lives by the sardine shoals of spring and autumn and the tunny fishing of the summer, where women kept goats and gardens, arranged marriages and made ends meet. They were deeply suspicious of all foreigners and consumed by the interest of their own ancient feuds and rituals, annual festivals and amicable rivalries that were fought out by the fishermen each evening in impromptu blank verse recited on the fonda. Yet Norman Lewis managed to win their trust and was able to record through anecdote and incident the lives of a proud, self-sufficient and poetic people, just before they were submerged by the concrete tourism developments of the Costa Brava.