It’s not often I find a website that makes me stop what I’m doing and an hour later feel like it hasn’t been a complete waste of my time – which is usually the case with YouTube (as entertaining as that hour often is) – but the InTransit website did just that.

I’m keen to understand as much as possible about the history and culture of the Catalan people and this Eurocatalan newsletter has some fantastic articles if you’re interested in the Catalan perspective of Spanish current events. The articles are political, academic and of course you have to be interested in the topic, but I think understanding the views and desires of the people I have chosen to live amongst is very important.

From the website…

InTransit is a quarterly monographic publication that offers the English translation of opinion pieces that have appeared in the Catalan-speaking press (which could include Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, the Franja d’Aragó (Aragon strip), Andorra, Northern Catalonia and the city of Alghero) or in the Spanish press. These articles offer a different perspective on issues that tend to be addressed with a single voice in Madrid.

The newsletter is still relatively new and only on its second edition. The following articles I found particularly interesting.

• Seven communities, one language
• Catalonia, As Seen From Andalucia
• Life on the receiving end: A subjective look at anti-Catalan prejudice in Spain
• Catalan: the Historical and Social Background of a Romance Language
• Letter to President Obama
• One way of writing in Catalan without being a Catalan writer
• The Unfinished Family
• Catalunya and the myth of Sepharad
• Rediscovering Alghero

Or you can download the full PDF versions of both issues…

• InTransit – Issue #1 Fall 2010 – Bye Bye Spain?
• InTransit – Issue #2 Winter 2010 – Catalan, a European Language Without Borders

Take a look. I really hope you find the site as informative as I did.