Maria-Mercè Marçal was the author of seven collections of poetry, a novel, and several short stories, as well as countless speeches, presentations, and scholarly essays on Catalan literature, feminist theory, and language theory. The world of Catalan letters mourned when she died of cancer in 1998 at age 45, still at the height of her powers. She is remembered today in tributes, memorials, songs, and even street graffiti all over Catalonia. Famous mainly among other Catalan writers at the time of her death, she is now emerging as one of the most important European poets of the twentieth century.