Life

• See text in Catalan written for the posthumous launch of Bitllet de tornada here. Click/tap on image to enlarge it.

Toni Turull i Creixell was born in Barcelona on 5 May 1933 and was the fourth and last child of his parents, the architect Xavier Turull i Ventosa and Assumpció Creixell. His older siblings were the violinist and composer Xavier, Núria and Pere.

He spent the years of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in Viladrau and in the post-war years lived in Barcelona, spending summers at the house in La Garriga that would be the setting for his novel La Torre Bernadot.

He studied first in Saragossa and then in Rome, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on Berdiaeff.

In the early 1960's he moved to Scotland, where he worked as Spanish lector at the University of Glasgow. A short period in Barcelona followed this and he then returned to Great Britain in 1964, to Bristol University, where he worked as lecturer in the Department of Hispanic Studies until his death in 1990.

His teaching covered Catalan language and literature, Spanish literature, especially poetry, Latin American poetry and Cuban studies. Two authors he wrote on and who were both personal friends were the Catalan poet and a distant relative Joan Oliver and the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén. As well as his teaching, he was very active promoting cultural events such as poetry readings and taking part in plays staged by the University.

• For more details and photos of Toni's time at Bristol University, see here.

During his years as a lecturer he combined his teaching and research with his own creative writing. Based in Bristol, he spent time every year in Barcelona and in his later years made frequent visits to Cuba.

He had four children - Xavier, Tània and Miquel with Matilde Piera Coll and Daniel with Judith Willis.

He died in Bristol from cancer in January 1990 aged 56, just 4 weeks after the birth of his second granddaughter, Alba.