Javier Coma and the boom in North American culture / Exhibitions / Visit us / Home
In 2020, the Biblioteca de Catalunya received the donation of part of the personal library of the critic Javier Coma and, for this reason, presents this sample of documents that illustrates the author’s fascination with American culture in various aspects (comics, cinema, the noir novel and jazz) as well as his intellectual contribution, in some cases pioneering to the country
Javier Coma Sanpere was born on November 12, 1939 in Barcelona. Son of the writer Vicenç Coma i Soley (1893-1979), he studied Law in Barcelona. His first contacts with the American world were in the family sphere and in the Library of the American House in Barcelona. As a result of his passion for cinema and music, he actively participated in the Cine-Club Monterols and the Jubilee Jazz Club; he was part of the organization of the 1st Barcelona Jazz Festival (1966) and began as a jazz critic at the RNE of Catalonia. After working for a few years in the advertising field, he decided to write about comics, influenced by American press strips and graphic novels, while defending sequential art, beyond the comics of the tebeo. He closed this stage as a specialist in the ninth art with the edition of a dictionary on the American Golden Age, thanks to the collection he collected from newspaper clippings and compilation volumes.
He was an avid reader who soon became interested in the noir novel. He published rigorously documented articles and books about American authors and became an unquestionable promoter of this genre. In 1985 I directed the black novel collection of Edicions 62 and in 1990 the Black collection (“la genuina novela negra”) of the publishing house Plaza & Janés.
From the 90s onwards, he devoted himself exhaustively to the analysis of American cinema, specifically that of the classic Hollywood era. His cinematographic texts were published in different formats, from collectibles to monographs, articles and collective works, in which he mainly dealt with westerns, war cinema, noir or musicals. Part of his latest editorial production focused on the witch hunt in Hollywood and the phenomenon of McCarthyism, deeply studied in his books, one of which was awarded the 2005 “Film-Història” Award.
Recognized defender of mass culture and staunch promoter of the American classic era, he ended his public activity in 2012.
The exhibition is organized in four thematic areas and collects both specimens from Coma’s personal library, as well as unique works from his vast bibliography preserved by the Biblioteca de Catalunya.
It shows the first appearances in the press as an author, his presence as an international expert and the catalog of texts published in 2010 under the pseudonym Aquiles Stampa. Coma’s relationship with comics, the noir novel, cinema, film music and jazz is also exposed. It is worth noting, in any case, the documentary variety and the working methodology used, as well as the constant intention to interconnect the topics he was familiar with.
The Biblioteca de Catalunya makes available to everyone this material from the library of Javier Coma, witness to his multifaceted career around North American culture, always with the aim of spreading it.
