IN THE FALL OF 2014, in the run-up to what began as a “declaration of sovereignty,” or, in layman’s terms, a referendum on Catalan independence, and was downgraded, for reasons deferential to the letter if not the spirit of the law, to a “citizen participation process,” I was living in Girona, thought by many to be the heart of the authentic Catalonia, in contrast to Barcelona, with its Spanish-speaking majority and its hordes of tourists and Argentine and Italian transplants. One day my landlords—he a Mosso d’Esquadra, a member of the Catalan autonomous police, as opposed to the Spanish National Police and Civil Guard, and she a functionary in the local administration—invited my wife and me to their country house for a calçotada, a traditional celebratory meal of grilled green onions and meats. Over wine, I asked them what they thought of the turn the independence movement had taken under then-president of Catalonia Artur Mas. They didn’t hesitate to affirm they would be voting “Yes/Yes” to the two questions to be featured on the ballot: “Do you want Catalonia to become a state?” and “Do you want this state to be independent?”
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