Vicent Usó i Mezquita was born in Vila-real (Plana Baixa) in April 1963. He studied History in Castelló and València  where he took his degree in Contemporary History.

NOVEL

His literary career starts in 1992, when he won the “Ciutat de Vila-real” prize for his short novel “La cançó de la terra estimada” (“Song of the beloved land”), a story that takes place during the Spanish Civil War.

 In April 1995, he won the “Antoni Bru” prize of narrative, as part of the 11th  literary and investigation prizes “Ciutat d’Elx”, for “La mirada de Nicodemus” (“Nicodemus’ look”), a novel of historical recreation that turns around the figure of Michaelangelo Buonarroti.

  In December 1995, he wins again the “Ciutat de Vila-real” prize for “I en els arbres i en el vent” (“And in the trees and in the wind”), an autobiographical account written as a result of the death of his grandfather.

 In October 1996, “La mirada de Nicodemus” is published by 3i4 and it is the first of his works to spread through the most usual commercial channels. According to the newspaper Levante-El Mercantil Valenciano, during the winter 1997, this novel  would be among the best-sellers in Catalan language in the land of Valencia.

 In February 1998 he wins the fourth edition of the Literary prize of Genre Novel of the University of Lleida for his novel “Tan oberta com sempre” (“As open as usual”), a prize dedicated in that case to an erotic novel. That same year Pagès Editors publishes the novel.

 In June 1998, the readers of Babel bookshop in Castelló, choose by vote  the novel “La mirada de Nicodemus” as the best fiction work written in Catalan.

 In January 2000 Pagès Editors publishes a new novel, “Maig era un mes sense pluja” (“There was no rain in May”).

 In December 2000 he wins the second edition of the “Ulisses” prizes of narrative  in Castelló for “La taverna del cau de la lluna” (“The tavern of the shelter of the moon”), work that would be published  by Tandem in April 2001.

 In November 2001, and with his work “L’herència del vent del sud” (“The legacy of the south wind”, 2002) he wins the “Fiter i Rossell” prize of novel in Andorra,  an award given by the Cercle de les Arts i de les Lletres and sponsored by the Principat d’Andorra government. Columna Edicions publishes the novel.

 In April 2002, “La taverna del cau de la lluna” wins the criticism prize of the Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana to the best work of literary creation in 2001.

 Some months later, Brosquil editions publishes “La memòria del vent” (“The memory of the wind”, 2002), a volume that joins together the two short novels “La cançó de la terra estimada”- a revised version for this edition- and “I en els arbres i en el vent”, both awarded with the “Ciutat de Vila-real” prize and difficult to find until then due to their publishing out of the usual commercial markets. The prologue is written by Alfons Cervera.

 In October 2002 he wins the “Andromina” prize of narrative for his novel “Crònica de la devastació” (“Chronicle of devastation”). This prize was part of  the 23rd edition of  “premis Octubre” (October prizes). The novel, published by 3i4, is to be sold in December of the same year.

 In 2003 the AELC (“Association of Writers in Catalan Language”) gives him the criticism prize of Valencian writers, on its section of narrative, to his novel “Crònica de la devastació”.

TALES

 Apart from novel, he has also developed short narrative. It was in this modality that he was awarded with some prizes all along 1996: the “Mont-roig 1996” prize, given in the city with the same name in the Baix Camp, for the tale Blanca i Bruna la noia (“White and dark the girl”) and the “Amadeu Pi i Secall” prize of Falset (Priorat) for the narrative El protagonista (“The protagonist”). Furthermore, he was finalist in the “Emili Teixidor” prize of Roda de Ter with the tale Missatges (“Messages”).

 In June 1997, he wins the “Rafael Comenge” prize of  short narrative, convoked by Alberic City Council,  for the tale Susanna i els vells (“Susanna and the old men”). That same September, the publishing house La Busca  published together in a compilation called “Ciutadella i altres contes” (“Ciutadella and other tales”) Missatges, the other finalist tales for the “Emili Teixidor” prize and the winner as well.

 In April 2003 the newspaper El País asks him to write a tale about war that will lead the special supplement that the Valencian edition of this newspaper was going to publish for the Fira del Llibre de València on the 1st of May 2003. Thus, El nen de la mà esquerra (“The left hand boy”) was born.

 Moreover, he has occasionally published tales in some mass media such as the newspaper Mediterráneo.

 JOURNALISM

 In 1988 he starts to collaborate with the newspaper Mediterráneo in its section of Vila-real. It is there where he publishes some news, documentaries, conducts  the local radio talks and practises musical criticism.

 In April 1992 and continuing in Mediterráneo, he starts to publish a weekly opinion column, La llum incerta (“The uncertain light”) that will be in for more than two years and a half.

  Since May 1997 he joins the managing board of the cultural supplement Cuadernos, in the newspaper Mediterráneo, where he publishes some interviews, documentaries and literary reviews.

 In February 2001 he takes up again his facet of columnist with Dissidències ("Dissidences"), an opinion column that is still appearing every Sunday in the pages of "El Periódico-Mediterráneo2.

 Since March 2001, he frequently collaborates as a literary critic in the supplement "Cultura" (Culture) in the Barcelona newspaper Avui.

 Furthermore, he has sporadically collaborated with several literary magazines such as "Saó", "El Temps", "L'Illa", "Diàfora" or "Caràcters". 

OTHERS

 In December 1996 he starts to collaborate with the theatre company Xarxa Teatre, taking charge of the texts for the show València, llum del Mediterarni (“Valence, light of the Mediterranean sea”). Since then, he has collaborated with the group in several occasions.

 During 2000 he wrote the script and the texts for the documentary “L’illa habitada” (“The inhabited island”), that deals with human presence in the Columbretes islands. Moreover, he publishes the tale Quadern de l’illa in the catalogue that was made for the commemorative exposition that celebrated the 10th anniversary of the declaration of the island as a marine reserve. This exposition was organised by the Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca.

 In February 2002 the magazine Poble of Vila-real awards him with his annual prize.

 He has given some lectures at the University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona (2000), in Ámbito Cultural, Valence (2001 and 2002) and in the Ateneu of Barcelona (2002), lectures that talked about the making process of the novels “Maig era un mes sense pluja”, “Noverint Universi” (of Joan Andrés Sorribes) and “La taverna del Cau de la Lluna” respectively.

THE WORKS

 "La cançó de la terra estimada" -"Song of the beloved land"- as part of “La memòria del vent”, ed. Brosquil. It tells us about the story of an exiled from the Spanish Civil War that, after a long time, comes back with a strong purpose: to fulfil the revenge he left undone. There, he will meet again the memory of his beloved, but also the phantoms of a past still alive. And he will realise that one never comes back to the same place he left.

"I en els arbres i en el vent" -"And in the trees and in the wind"- as part of “La memòria del vent”, ed. Brosquil. This work has to do with memory: the memory of a world full of agricultural uses -and vocabulary-  that is getting lost below the trace of industry. A world that the author recreates in “I en els arbres i en el vent”, where he explores the most intimate corner of the relationships between a grandfather, who is about to die and his grandson. A trip will be the excuse to draw a profoundly humane portrait of the apparently most insignificant details of existence. Details that, in the long term, end up being the only thing that really matters. A trip that shows itself deeper than what it seems at first sight. A trip that points out directly to memory.

"La mirada de Nicodemus" -"Nicodemus' look"- ed. Tres i Quatre. This is a historical novel, although it also contains some elements that belong to black novel, as well as psychological and intrigue novel. The action starts in Rome in 1563, when Cesare da Castel, master of works of San Pietro cathedral and an old Michelangelo Buonarroti's trustworthy person is murdered in strange circumstances. This is the starting point of a plot full of intrigues and ambitions in which Michelangelo himself, his closest friend (the Roman noble Tommaso di Cavalieri), a killer with a strange mark in his hand, the whore with whom he dwells, an important civil servant from the Vatican who bears hidden love relationships with a Toledan noble, a cunning cardinal, an unscrupulous architect and even Pope Pius IV himself are involved. The reason are some secret documents running from hand to hand. Some documents that endanger the final agreements of the Concilium of Trento.

"Tan oberta com sempre" -"As open as usual"- Pagès editors. This is an erotic novel in which intrigue plays an important role. In it, sexual passion is the engine of an action that thanks to a dynamic and agile prose, traps the reader just in the same web of mystery and hidden motives that threatens to swallow the main character. The plot of "Tan oberta com sempre" turns around a very attractive woman called Helena, for whom beauty ends up  by being a prison. Married to a prosperous clerk, Helena realises that his marriage has turned into a luxurious and shining emptiness. She will try to escape away, but she will have to fight against her husband, who wants to keep up appearances above all, and against herself and conventions as well. On the way, at the same time she happens to discover the most hidden aspects of her own identity, she will find herself involved in the web of a shady and shameful passion which will lead her to an unexpected end.

"Maig era un mes sense pluja" -"There was no rain in May"- Pagès editors. This is a novel about the "foggy" limits existing between truth and lie. Màrius, a young man imprisoned due to drug traffic, tells his lawyer that he fortunately happened to find a strange chronicle, the chronicle of his own life. Little by little, he keeps on making a portrait where he flashes with no sense of shame the antecedents of his closest relatives. In Màrius' tale, very curious characters are to meet together: a fair-goer, whose run-away will break a promise of love, a doctor whose obsession is to keep secret a very compromising deed of his past, a dog, who is presumed to have committed suicide, a bizarre tramp whose origin and name are unknown, an old lady who is afraid of not dying and a woman who looks for shelter in absolute silence due to a love event. Years after Màrius’ conversations with his lawyer, a mysterious letter will tumble down step by step the base of this story with the telling of a very different version to that of the facts. A new chronicle that will set the dilemma of distinguishing both where truth is and where lie is. Written in an intense and agile prose, the narration will keep on catching our eye as well as it will be harder and harder to give the reading up.

 “La taverna del Cau de la Lluna” –“The tavern of the shelter of the moon”- Tàndem edicions. Apparently, “La taverna del Cau de la Lluna” is a book made up of short stories. Ten accounts that can be read independently. But, at the same time, it is also a novel because, in fact, all the tales share a place, a time and a characters. And they also share a group of stories that, without diminishing the autonomy of each one, end up by linking up in a way that, at the end, the book exudes the unmistakable atmosphere of a novel. A novel of mythical geographies, extreme loves, legends broken by oblivion, violent deaths, confessions which cannot be confessed. A work that uses the technique of monologue to present  ten different characters –each one with a behaviour, a language and a vision of things of their own- that are seduced by the suggestive capacity of words. A group of characters that sort out their stories to an interlocutor who, at the same time, is the character of other actions happening in different tales, in such a way that, at the end, everything joins in a unique world. A work of characters and a work of landscapes: the ones of a mountain valley among cork oaks and pines that nearly acts as a character.

  “L’herència del vent del sud” –“The legacy of the south wind”- Columna edicions. One hot afternoon in 1947, Pasqual el Negre enters the Vila tavern with a terrifying piece of news for the customers: Manolete has been deadly wounded in Linares. But it will not be the only piece of news they will know that day: it is being said in the Pla de la Creu that they have found the village lords’ heir hung on a balk. This fact is the starting point of a plot that will involve, little by little, every inhabitant of the Vila, all of them incurably marked by the development of the civil war, still present in their lives. Written in a language that combines several registers and situations that range from the sharpest humour to the most intimate tragedy, “L’herència del vent del sud” portrays the complexity of everyday life in a Mediterranean city during the dictatorship of Franco.

“Crònica de la devastació” –Chronicle of devastation- Edicions 3i4. It tells the story of Luka, a widely distinguished old poet who, due to the breaking out of the war in his country, has to escape from the city he lives in. There, the bombings have left him homeless and, furthermore, they have reduced to ashes the originals of his last book, still unpublished. It will be in front of the building in flames that he will meet again Maia, his usual partner, although their relationship had been in a period of misunderstandings. Together, they will start the way back to the village where their son, their daughter-in-law and their grandson, named Luka as well, live. And it will be there, far away from war, where the old poet will discover thanks to the boy, the small details that make sense to life. But war is inevitably approaching and Luka, who knows yet the horrors it supposes, is afraid his grandson can be the first victim.