"The word makes the man": A Catalan anarchist autodidact in the Australianbush

This paper examines the interplay between the life and ideas of a Catalan a narchist and autodidact, Salvador Torrents, who migrated to Australia in 19 15. Until his death in 1951, Torrents, from his isolated farm in North Quee nsland, contributed regular commentaries and articles in libertarian newspa pers in Spain, France and the United States. With the exception of the year s of the Spanish civil war, Torrents remained outside mainstream Australian labour politics. Like many non-English speaking immigrants, a lack of the language was an obstacle to participation. As well, as an anarchist, Torren ts considered political parties and electoral politics a waste of time in a chieving social and political change. Instead he propounded, and practised, the transformative powers of self-education and the revolutionary role of the autodidact in fomenting radical change. His ideas had been forged in th e turbulent politics of Catalonia in the first decades of the century. In A ustralia he continued to apply the same analysis in what he perceived as th e similar context which Southern European immigrants confronted in North Qu eensland. Although invisible on the Australian Left, Torrents functioned as a left wing intellectual, contributing to a particular public discourse, w hich took place in a space that was separated from the mainstream Australia n Left by language and different radical traditions.