Xavier Mas Craviotto (Navàs, Catalonia, 1996) studied Catalan Philology and completed a postgraduate degree in Linguistic Consultancy and Publishing Services at the University of Barcelona. For four years, he was a lecturer in Catalan language and culture at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom. He has also been a board member of the Association of Catalan Language Writers (AELC). He is one of the co-founders of ’Com ho diria’, a digital platform specialising in Catalan youth slang. He was the youngest writer ever to win the Documenta Narrative Prize in 2018 for his novel ’La mort lenta’ (‘The Slow Death’, 2019), and later published his second novel, ’La pell del món’ (‘The Skin of the World’, 2023). He is also the author of three poetry collections: ’Renills de cavall negre’ (‘Black Horse Neighs’, 2019), with which he became the inaugural winner of the Salvador Iborra Youth Art Poetry Prize in 2018; ’La gran nàusea’ (‘The Great Nausea’, 2021), and ’La llum subterrània’ (‘The Underground Light’, 2023), which earned him the Ausiàs March Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for Catalan poetry. In the field of linguistics, he co-authored ’Petem-ho!: manual de català per a boomers i millennials’ (‘Let’s Crush It!: A Catalan Manual for Boomers and Millennials’, 2023), an essay on youth slang and colloquial Catalan. He has recently published the collection of short stories ‘Animals inexpressius’ (‘Expressionless Animals’), which is his latest work. He has published short stories and poems in collective anthologies and in several newspapers, and has participated in numerous media outlets and literary events across Catalan-speaking territories and internationally, including the United Kingdom, Panama, Macedonia or Mexico.

Image by Maria Ródenas