Departures of note

Rosa Maria Duran i Gili was born in Barcelona in 1927. After the Spanish Civil War, her family took refuge in Montpellier, France, and later settled in Mexico, where she completed her university studies before pursuing postgraduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris.

She worked as an interpreter for the United Nations and dedicated more than six decades to preserving and promoting Catalan language, culture, and the memory of exile through her work as a writer, translator, and conference interpreter. She became a prominent figure of the Catalan community in exile in Mexico, helping to build cultural bridges between Catalonia and Mexico.

In 2022 she was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi, the second-highest civil distinction in Catalonia, in recognition of her lifelong contribution to Catalan culture. Her death in Mexico was mourned by the president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, who praised her commitment to preserving and diffusing the language, culture, and memory of the exile.