The Bierville Elegies is the most outstanding work by the Catalan poet Carles Riba (1893-1959). Once Riba and his family embarked on the path of exile in France towards the end of the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, they settled first in the castle of Bierville and there, between March and July 1939, what would later become the Elegies began to take shape. Riba continued the work between July 1939 and June 1940 in L'Isle-Adam, then for eight months in Bordeaux. The Elegies reached their final form in Montpellier, where Riba settled. Along with Nabí (1941) by Josep Carner and Antigone by Salvador Espriu, the Elegies of Bierville constitute one of the great works of modern Catalan literature and the prime post-civil-war pieces marked by the political situation.