L’amor a un projecte i les seves conseqüències: 16 anys de la Llibreria Pròleg

Going forward with one’s own desire is a challenge that turns us into people, sometimes vulnerable, but with the strength of passion. At the end of the eighties I attended a meeting at the Casa Elizalde called by the committee of the Fourth International Feminist Book Fair, with Mireia Bofill and Maria José Aubet at the helm. The objective of the meeting was to form committees to help in the event. I was linked to the feminist movement through Ca la Dona
and also La Sal Cultura, of which I was president; these links led me to be in relationship with women with whom even today I am joined with in common criteria, like living and feeling life on the margin of the patriarchy. When the
Fair finished, Luisa Cabras proposed to me that I should open a women’s bookshop in Barcelona, and the Project took shape at the beginning of 1992. It was necessary to get through the sieve of a ferocious patriarchy, but when
we decided to consolidate the desire to open a women’s bookshop, the desire that had been hidden for so long put all the pressures and obstacles into second place. We managed to get a joint and sufficient initial capital of eleven investing partners at 500.000 pesetas each, plus mine and Luisa Cabra’s unemployment capital, together with the necessary bank loans we got the project started with an initial capital of 25 million pesetas. Many women showed themselves willing to collaborate in the project. Women such as Maria Mercè Marçal who offered herself to collaborate in what she could, women linked to feminist thinking and women’s politics, like Milagros Rivera who came into the project as a partner. Women’s responses were multiple and varied, but all were enthusiastic. We found the premises and inaugurated the bookshop on 21st May 991. In spite of the conflicts and the difficulties of the first years, I went ahead, taking on the role of main partner and administrator of the society, and a little afterwards I was able to count on the outstanding help of my daughter Núria. The Llibreria Pròleg continues to be a precarious enterprise, but it is healthy economically, professionally recognised for its specialisation, both by state and private institutions, and by women and men of very diverse sectors and ideologies. Pròleg is an open space, of discussion, learning and relationships that look forward to a constructive future of freedom and love.