Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa

Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa Rial (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, October 11, 1936) is a Spanish novelist, journalist and inventor, author of more than one hundred books, and one of the authors most widely read contemporaries in Spain and in the world. He was a correspondent for La Vanguardia and Televisión Española, and is the owner of the company Desalinizadora A.V.F. S.L., in charge of managing desalination by pressure, a method invented by himself.

Biography

He was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands. His grandfather was an architect and his father was born in Guadalajara while his grandmother was there for work. Her mother was born on the island of Lobos, the daughter of the local lighthouse keeper.

When he was not yet a year old, his family was exiled for political reasons to Africa, since his father was a socialist republican and was imprisoned during the Civil War. He spent his childhood between Morocco and the Spanish Sahara until he was sixteen.

Her father was released, but spent several years in a hospital with tuberculosis. Also, while in Africa, his mother passed away. Then Alberto was picked up by his uncle, civil administrator of the military fort in the Spanish Sahara where they lived. This began to provide him with books to read, especially adventure novels by authors such as Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville and Jules Verne, which made this his favorite genre.

At the age of 16 he returned to Tenerife to study. He worked as a scuba diving teacher on the training ship Cruz del Sur , with Jacques Cousteau, where he spent two years. Vega de Tera dam, which destroyed the town of Ribadelago.

He currently resides in an attic in the Madrid neighborhood of Argüelles and Lanzarote.

As a journalist

With the money obtained as a scuba diving teacher, he moved to Madrid, paying himself and obtaining his diploma from the Official School of Journalism in 1959.

Not finding work after finishing his studies, he decided to buy an old boat and, together with two of his former scuba diving students, go around the world, which took them 14 months. After returning, he wrote a book with the collected material, and with the money from selling the boat he returned to Morocco. In this country he had various jobs, but returned to Spain.

He began working as a special envoy in 1962 for Destino and as a war correspondent for La Vanguardia. Later, he made the Spanish Television program A toda plana with Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo. He covered wars and revolutions in Bolivia, Chad, Congo, Guatemala, Guinea, the Dominican Republic, and others.

As a writer

She wrote Sand and Wind, her first novel, at the age of fourteen (which was published at seventeen), but it was not until she had been a journalist for fifteen years that she began to earn enough to dedicate herself exclusively to his literary career, which includes more than sixty published books.

Success came with his 15th or 16th novel, Ebony, which deals with the subject of the slave trade in Africa. A movie was made of this book a year after its publication; it would be the first of more than fifteen. Other of his recognized works are Manaus and Tuareg . In 1975 she wrote an autobiography, titled Anaconda.

In 1966 he was nominated for the Nadal prize with the novel I don't believe in anyone, which was never published. In 1979 Manaus premiered on the big screen, directed by him. The Amazon, the desert, the African jungle, are some of his favorite subjects, developed from extensive documentation. As he has commented, the fact of having traveled halfway around the world has given him the experience and experiences necessary to give realism to his novels.

In 2007, he published his new novel For a Billion Dollars simultaneously on paper and as a free download through his blog. In addition, he announced his intention to publish his next works in the same shape. The reason, according to him, was his conviction that & # 34; whoever downloads it from the network would never have bought my novel, that is, I prefer that he read me for free than not read me at all. Maybe next time you'll decide to buy a book even if it's not mine." Also, "all newspapers or magazines that want to are allowed to publish them in the style of the old serialized novels with the difference that in this case they will not have to pay me anything by way of copyright".

As an Entrepreneur and Inventor

He invented a system to make seawater drinkable by pressure that simultaneously generates electricity, and he promoted it in his book Living from the wind, from 2003. It consists of obtaining the necessary 60 atmospheres of pressure Through a 600 meter deep well, sufficient pressure for the salt water to pass through the membranes in the desalination plant. The company (Desalinizadora A.V.F. S.L.) that operates this procedure, of which he is president, projected a plant for Almería, its construction / financing being rejected by the Government of Spain.

He has several national and European patents to his name based on his gravity desalination technology.

The project, however, has been criticized by different engineers. It must be taken into account that his project proposed using electricity at night with low consumption, the price of which is lower, to raise seawater. Figueroa affirms that the pressures of the traditional companies are very strong; They forced a minister and the population does not seem to care.

Other projects proposed by the author include the use of the Serviola-SB underwater drone, as a method of aid at sea against shipwrecks.

Posts

Biographical

• Sand and wind (1953)
• Under seven seas. Long journey to paradise (1962)
• The route of Orellana (1970)
• Anaconda (1975)
• The promised water (1995)
• Seven lives and a half (2009)

Novels

• Africa chained (1963)
• South of the Caribbean (1965)
• After Alec's prints (1971)
• Journey at the end of the world. Galapagos (1972)
• Virgin land. The destruction of the Amazon (1973)
• Who killed the ambassador? (1974)
• Mana (1975)
• Ébano (1975)
• Like a rabid dog (1975)
• Panama, Panama! (1977)
• Black sea (1977)
• The last will (1979)
• Sha (1980)
• New gods (1980)
• Kill Gaddafi (1981)
• The iguana (1982)
• Forget Machu-Picchu (1983)
• Die in South Africa (1985)
• Ivory (1985)
• Vendaval (1986)
• Viracocha (1987)
• Palmira (1987)
• Hunter (1988)
• The dog (1989)
• Dolphins (1990)
• Sicario (1991)
• The green ring (1992)
• Citizen Max (1992)
• Africa weeps (1994)
• The Ordaly of the Poison (1995)
• Red Sultana (1998)
• Icaro (1998) (Biography of Jimmy Angel)
• Fuerteventura (1999)
• The Inca (1999)
• Time of conquerors (2000)
• The Lord of Darkness (2001)
• Bora Bora (2001)
• Live from the wind (2003)
• The invisible lion (2003)
• The Pacific Gate (2004)
• Ali in the country of wonders (2005)
• A drift (2005)
• The leper king (2005) (Biography of Sebastian I of Portugal)
• The sea of Jade (2006)
• Hundreds (2007) (Biography of Alonso de Ojeda)
• Pederasts (2007)
• Living and dead (2007)
• Coltan (2008)
• Saud the Leopardo (2009) (Biography of Abdelaziz bin Saud)
• Garoé (2010, winner of the Alfonso X El Sabio Historic Novel Award)
• The sea on fire (2011)
• Irina Dogonovic (2011)
• The beautiful beast (2012)
• Codicia (2012)
• Bimini (2013)
• Medusa (2014)
• Hunger (2014) S.A. Editions B
• Crime against humanity (2015) Editions B
• The barbarism (2016) Editions B
• Rumbo at night (2017) Editions B
• Goodbye, Miss Trump (2017)
• Bajamar (2018)
• Altamira bison (2019)
• Year of fires (2019)
• The destroyer of the Amazon (2020)
• The Dream of Texas (2021)
• Old Summit (2022)

Diptychs

• Tuareg:
  • Tuareg (1980)
  • The eyes of the tuareg (2000)
  • The last tuareg (2014)

• Utopias:
  • We're all guilty. (2001)
  • A better world (2002)

• Speculation:
  • A billion dollars (2007)
  • Coltan (2008)
  • Kalashnikov (2009)

• Pandemic:
  • A hundred years later (2020)
  • The vaccine (2020)

Cienfuegos Series

1. Cienfuegos (1987)
2. Caribbean (1990)
3. Azabache (1991)
4. Montenegro (1992)
5. Brazofuerte (1993)
6. Xaraguá (1993)
7. Land of Bisontes (2006)
8. Memories of Cienfuegos (2021)

Ocean Series

1. Ocean (1984)
2. Yaiza (1984)
3. Maradentro (1985)

Pirates Series

1. Pirates (1996)
2. Businessmen (1996)
3. León Bocanegra (1998)

Plays

• Heaven cheats (1963)
• The conjured (1963)
• A man has arrived. (1963)
• The tavern of the four winds (1994)
• Alcazarquivir (1998)

Various

• Tenerife. Travel guide (1964)
• Gran Canaria. Travel guide (1965)
• Tomorrow in Venezuela (1975)
• An alternative university (1989)
• Mare magnum (2000)

Filmography

As director and screenwriter

• Red gold (1978)
• Mana (1979) (adaption of his novel Mana)

As a writer

• Are you my father?, Antonio Giménez-Rico (1971)
• The dog, Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi (1977) (adaptation of his novel Like a rabid dog)
• AshantiRichard Fleischer (1978) Ébano)
• Things, José Lapeña (1980) (TV series, 1 cap. ep.15, appears as an actor)
• The last will, Sergio Garrone (1981) The last will)
• TuaregEnzo G. Castellari (1984) Tuareg)
• Black arrowJohn Hough (1985)
• Blood in the Caribbean, Rafael Villaseñor Kuri (1985)
• Crystal Heart, Gil Bettman (1986)
• The iguana, Monte Hellman (1988) (adaptation of his novel The iguana)
• Ocean, Ruggero Deodato (1989) (TV series, 6 cap.) (adaptation of his novels Ocean, Yaiza and Maradentro)
• Rottweiler, Brian Yuzna (2004) The dog)