Antony Gala

Antonio Gala Velasco (Brazatortas, Ciudad Real, October 2, 1930) is a Spanish poet, playwright, novelist, screenwriter and columnist.

Biography

Christian name Antonio Ángel Custodio Sergio Alejandro María de los Dolores Queen of the Martyrs of the Holy Trinity and of All Saints, she was born and lived her childhood in Brazatortas, province of Ciudad Real, until she was 9 years old. In 1939, her family moved to Córdoba, where Antonio wrote her first works, giving a conference at the age of fourteen at the Real Círculo de la Amistad, Artistic and Literary Lyceum of Córdoba.

A precocious reader of Rainer Maria Rilke, Garcilaso, San Juan de la Cruz and other authors, he studied Law at the University of Seville from the early age of 15 and, as a free student, Philosophy and Letters, Political Science and Economics at the University of Madrid, obtaining degrees in all of them.

When he finished his university studies, he began preparing for competitive examinations for the State Lawyers Corps, abandoning it in a gesture that he remembers as a rebellion against his father's pressures, to later join the Carthusians. But the rigid monastic discipline was not made for him, and, as he recounts in his autobiography, Now I will speak of myself (2000), he was expelled from the order.

She then moved to Portugal, where she led a bohemian life. In 1959 he began to teach Philosophy and Art History and received a second prize for the Adonáis Poetry Prize for his work Intimate Enemy, beginning a successful theater and journalistic career, which since 1963 enabled him to live only on writing. In the middle of 1962 he went to Italy, settling in Florence, where he stayed for almost a year. During this time he published in the monthly magazine Cuadernos hispanoamericanos poems from his book La deshonra .

In 1973 he suffered a perforation of the duodenum in Madrid that brought him to the brink of death and during his convalescence he began to use a cane, an object of which he has already gathered a large collection, some 3000 copies, gifts from friends and admirers.

He has published articles in the Sunday supplement of El País, from its founding in 1976 to 1998, such as "Chats with Troylo", "To the heirs", "To whom goes with me", etc.; all these articles have been later compiled in books.

He began writing novels in the 1990s, beginning with The Crimson Manuscript, which won the Premio Planeta in 1990.

He has also collaborated in the newspaper El Mundo (between 1992 and 2015), in the latter with brief opinion articles published under the name troneras. The pace of creation and publication of his other works has slowed down recently, and on several occasions he has hinted that The Pedestal of the Statues may be his last novel.

He created the Antonio Gala Foundation for Young Creators, dedicated to supporting and providing scholarships for the work of young artists.

On December 14, 2011, he received the 2011 Quijote Honor Award for a lifetime awarded by the Spanish Association of Writers (ACE).

On July 5, 2011, the writer announced in his portrait of the newspaper El Mundo that he was suffering from "cancer that is difficult to remove". In February 2015, during the tribute paid to him by the city of Malaga on the occasion of his appointment as Adoptive Son and the delivery of the City Medal, he stated that he was now free of an ailment that he had endured "longer than it should" #3. 4; and he stated: & # 34; The doctors of the Reina Sofía have declared me free of cancer & # 34;.

Ideology

During the Spanish Transition (approximately between 1976 and early 1981) he publicly defended left-wing positions that were not framed within any political party. In 1978 he claimed autonomy for Andalusia at the opening of the Congress of Andalusian Culture in Córdoba.

In 1981 he was appointed president of the Hispanic-Arab Friendship Association, a position he held during the first years of its existence. Around this same time he was part of the Spain-USSR Friendship Society, an organization subsidized by the Soviet Government.

In 1985 he was denounced by a commander of the Spanish army for insults and offenses against the Spanish army in his article Soldadito español published in the newspaper El País in May of the same year. The case was dismissed.

He was president of the civic platform that advocated "no" to the permanence of Spain in NATO, whose referendum was held in March 1986.

In recent years he has published articles highly critical of the State of Israel in the newspaper El Mundo, which have been accused of being anti-Semitic. In 2014, the Jewish Community of Madrid sued him for discrimination, incitement to hatred, offense to the feelings of members of a religious community and insults as a result of an article entitled The chosen ones?.

Work

Antonio Gala at the Madrid Book Fair in 2007.

Gala is an author of great success among readers in any of the genres that cultivate: theater, columnism, novel or lyrical. His style abounds in lyrical images and resources, and is very elaborate in the formal, but he does not lack detractors for his criticisms of today or historical characters.

His works are marked by historical issues, more used to illuminate the present than to delve into the past. The dramaturgy began with the green fields of Eden (1963), November and a little grass I> Rings for a lady (1973), The zyarras hung from the trees (1974), comedy Why do you run, Ulysses? (1975), Petra Galadada (1980), The little hotel, Seneca or the benefit of the doubt (1987) and in 1989 he gives the opera libretto Christopher Columbus. He has collaborated in television series such as and in the end Hope and 1980). Other works of his are the cemetery of the birds (1982), Samarkanda , The sleeping beauty , on youth without ideals, etc. Gala's wide theatrical work has been more appreciated by its audience than by critics, which finds difficulty when classifying it due to the lyrical and epic character that the author prints in his work.

Gala has cultivated all possible literary genres, including journalism, story, essay and television script, and has been awarded numerous awards, not only in the field of poetry, but also as a result of its valuable Contribution to theater and opera. Multiple awards are in his palmarés; Among them, a second prize of the Adonáis Poetry Award for his work is high /i> and the planet prize for its first novel, the crimson manuscript . They knew particular success Rings for a lady (1973), why you run, Ulysses? I> Samarkanda (1985), Carmen, Carmen (1988) and La Truhana (1992). From his poetic work, unpublished in large part, high Intimate enemy and The poem of spray tobias (2005).

Antonio Gala's arrival in the novel was late, but obtained an overwhelming public with novels such as the historical the crimson manuscript and the rule of three as well as Turkish passion , adapted to the cinema by the well -known Spanish director, Vicente Aranda. The Bicéfala Águila is a collection of articles about love. It also highlights in the short story field with books such as the guests to the garden (2002). He published his memories in 2000 with the title I will talk about me.

Theater

• The green fields of Eden1963
• The snail in the mirror1964
• The sun in the tingling, 1966
• November and a little grass, 1967
• Spain's strip-tease1970
• Good days lost, 1972
• Lucky, champ!1973
• Rings for a lady1973
• The cites hanging from the trees1974
• Why are you running, Ulysses?1975
• Petra given away1980
• The old lady of paradise1980
• The cemetery of birds1982
• Trilogy of freedom1983
• Samarkanda1985
• The hotelito1985
• Seneca or the benefit of doubt, 1987
• Carmen, Carmen1988
• Christopher Columbus1989
• The truhana1992
• The beautiful sleepers1994
• Café singer1997
• Friday apples1999
• Unbreakable ines, 2003

Poetry

• Enemy intimate1959
• 11 sonnets of La Zubia1981
• 27 sonnets of La Zubia, 1987
• Cordoba Poems1994
• Andalusian Testament1994
• Poems of love1997
• The poem of Tobias desangelado2005
• From the South I tell you, edition of Pedro J. Plaza, 2019

Articles

• Text and pretext, 1977
• Talk to Troy1981
• In his own hand1985
• Notebooks of the Autumn Lady1985
• Dedicated to Tobias1988
• The sound loneliness1989
• Proas and troneras1993
• The bicephalous eagle1993
• Cordoba of Gala1993
• Who with me goes1994
• Andaluz1994
• Letter to the heirs1995
• Troneras1996
• The house is quiet1998
• Fifth2012 (aphorisms)

Narrative

• The Carmelite manuscript1990 (novela)
• Turkish passion1993 (novela)
• Seven stories1993 (relates)
• Granada of the Nasrids1994 (novela)
• Beyond the garden1995 (novela)
• The rule of three1996 (new)
• The late heart1998 (relates)
• The outskirts of God1999 (new)
• Now I'll talk about me2000 (autobiography)
• The impossible forget2001 (new)
• Guests in the garden2002 (relates)
• The owner of the wound2003 (relates)
• The pedestal of the statues2007 (new)
• Water papers2008 (new)

TV scripts

• And in the end hope, 1967
• Song of the Santiago for all, 1971
• If the stones speak, 1972
• Landscape with figures1976
• Thirteen nights1999

TEST

• Finisterre. On trips, crossings, shipwrecks and navigations with Sánchez Dragó, Fernando Savater, Luis Racionero, Ramón Buenaventura, José María Álvarez, José María Poveda, Luis Paniagua, José María de Areilza, Pedro Martínez Montálvez, Marcos-Ricardo Barnatán, Xavier Domingo, Valentín Paz Andrade (Editorial Planeta, 1984)

Awards and awards

• Accésit of the Adonija de Poesía Award for Enemy intimate (1959)
• Las Albinas Award, for his story Summer Solstice (1963)
• National Barca Calderon Theatre Award for Comedy The green fields of the Eden (1963)
• Barcelona City Award for Theatre by The green fields of the Eden (1965)
• Mayte Theatre Award for Good days lost (1973)
• César González Ruano Award for Journalism Troy's eyes (1975)
• Castile-La Mancha Medal
• Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Córdoba (1982)
• Gold Book of Spanish Books (1984)
• Predilect Son of Andalusia (1985)
• Andalusia de las Letras Prize (1989)
• Leon Felipe Award for Civic Values (1989)
• Planet Prize for novel by The Carmelite manuscript (1990)
• Award of the Ibn al-Jatib Foundation for Cultural Studies and Cooperation (2005), dependent on the City of Loja, Granada.
• Don Quixote Award of Honor (2011)
• Elio Antonio de Nebrija (2011) Andalusian Letters Award
• Adoptive Son of Malaga (2015)
• Granada Tourism Award (2015)
• National Pepe Isbert Theatre Award (2020)

Recognitions

• In the municipality of Guadalcázar the Municipal Library bears the name of the writer, who inaugurated it in 2011.

• In the year 2021, the Casa-Museo of Antonio Gala "La Baltasara" was inaugurated in Alhaurín the Great, a place that the author fixed as his summer residence since the 1980s and served as a refuge to write much of his work.