Fernando Quinones

Fernando Quiñones Chozas (Chiclana de la Frontera, March 2, 1930-Cádiz, November 17, 1998) was a Spanish writer, noted for his literary and poetic work.

Biography

She spent her childhood and adolescence in Cádiz with her paternal grandmother. At fifteen, she starts working on the pier. In December 1948 he began his literary adventure with the creation of the magazine El Parnaso with which he was until February 1950 and which will be followed by Platero , which is published until 1954.

He began writing for the press, an activity he never abandoned. A series of his journalistic articles will be collected years later in two volumes, Meat Photos and For Dark-haired America , each containing fifty texts.

After completing his military service, he went to Madrid where he began working for the Reader's Digest in October 1953 and where he would make his way.

In 1957 they began their travels around the world: France, Portugal, Italy, Morocco, among others. In this same year he published his first book of poetry, Ascanio or Libro de las flores and Cercanía de la gracia with which he had obtained second prize for the Adonais Prize for poetry. in 1956.

He married Nadia Consolani in Milan in 1959. In that same year his daughter Mariela was born. A year later he won the Literary Prize of the newspaper La Nación of Buenos Aires with Seven stories of bulls and men . Jorge Luis Borges, member of the jury, sentenced:

We knew nothing of the man who watched the pseudonym; the environment, the intonation and some detachment in the handling of the words let a Spaniard and even an Andalusian. Two themes — wine and tauromachia — prevailed in the texts; both tended to keep us away from them. As Quevedo we were supporters of bulls not bullfighters... We all feel however that the themes are symbols and adjectives. The only thing is man... And in the stories of Fernando Quiñones was man, his character and his destiny. We reward them with unanimous agreement, because we warned in the work of Quiñones a great writer of the Hispanic literature of our time, or, simply, of literature.

Also in 1960 he won the Prose Award at the XII Harvest Festival of Jerez with Five stories of wine. In 1963 his second son, Mauro, was born.

In 1971 Fernando decided to dedicate himself entirely to literature and quit his job at Reader's Digest. From now on he will live halfway between Madrid and his beloved Cádiz. Trips, conferences, announcements, courses and writing occupy most of his time. In 1973 he went with his friend Félix Grande to Latin America as ambassador of flamenco: Puerto Rico, Peru, Argentina, Nicaragua and Chile. In 1987 he traveled with José Agustín Goytisolo to Morocco; with Antonio Hernández in Yemen. In Cuba they give him the Casa de las Américas Award.

For Cádiz, and with the desire to magnify his city, he created Alcances, a festival that he has directed since 1968 for a decade. The exhibition, one of the cultural hubs of the capital of Cádiz, is today dedicated exclusively to cinema, although with Fernando Quiñones at the helm it had a miscellaneous nature: painting, classical music, flamenco, cinema, literature and an endless number of activities that gave life to the Cadiz summers. Alcances was a commendable undertaking that dealt with the lack of economic means and with a strong Francoist censorship.

Cádiz also owes Fernando Quiñones the impetus behind the founding of the Peña Flamenca Enrique el Mellizo, the first to be created in the capital of Cádiz with these characteristics.

In love with his land, his south of Cádiz, on an ordinary afternoon, shortly before he died, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, Fernando Quiñones took his wife Nadia by the sea and from there he said to her: «Nadia, I want to make you a gift: I give you Cádiz ». The city will give Fernando Quiñones, right in that place, the promenade that receives his name.

On November 17, 1998, he died of a peritoneal tumor at the Puerta del Mar Hospital in Cádiz.

Work and awards

It was reflected in some of his works that he was in love with flamenco, among them De Cádiz y sus cantes, awarded with the Research Prize of the Week of Flamenco Studies in 1964; Flamenco life and death (1971); Bulls and flamenco art (1982); Flemish poems and an account of the same thing (1983); The flamenco (1985); What is flamenco? (1992); Antonio Mairena. His work, its meaning (1989). On Spanish Television he will be for the first time in 1965; in 2, for four years. Although it will be incorporated again with its flamenco program in 1977.

The Leopoldo Panero Poetry Prize in 1963, which he received for his book In Life, will be followed by books of short stories: War, the sea and other excesses, Historias de la Argentina, Sexteto de amor ibérico; begins the series of Chronicles: Crónicas de mar y tierra (1968), Crónicas de Al-Andalus (1970), American Chronicles (1973), Crónicas del cuarenta (1976), and in 1979 he was a finalist for the Premio Planeta with Las mil noches de Hortensia Romero. He also writes plays: Carmen , Andalucía en pie , El grito , Si yo les contarara . In 1983 he was once again a finalist for the Planet with La canción del pirata. With The Chronicles of Hispania he won the City of Melilla International Poetry Award in 1984; Tiflos, in 1988, with The Chronicles of Castilla. In 1990 he received the Café Gijón Novel Prize for Encierro y fuga de San Juan de Aquitania ; Vueltas sin fecha won the Juan March Short Novel Award in 1994; Casa put in placeres was awarded by Esteban Manuel de Villegas that same year. In 1998, on the eve of his death, he obtained the Jaime Gil de Biedma award for The Rosemont Chronicles and the University of Cádiz named him Doctor Honoris Causa.

Walk Fernando Quiñones (Cadiz). Views of the Atlantic Ocean and San Sebastian Castle.

In addition to the aforementioned books, he writes poetry in Ben Jaqan, The American Chronicles, Memorandum, The English Chronicles, Wall of the hetairas or Libro de fondo tanta o libro de las whores, The Yemeni Chronicles, The Yugoslav Chronicles, The poems of Córdoba, Casa put in placeres or Last sheets of the letter to Cori with other erotic poems; storybooks: The Old Country, They Left Us Alone, South Wind, Legionary, The two-voice chorus; novels: The love of Soledad Acosta, Vueltas sin date, La visita, The eyes of time, Guilty or The Shadow Wing; essays: Óscar Estruga, sculptor.

Acknowledgments

In addition to the awards received for his literary work, the city of Cádiz has dedicated a monument to him facing the sea on the Paseo that bears his name and has created a tourist route named after Fernando Quiñones.

The city of Chiclana awarded him the Gold Medal (1988) and the University of Cádiz named him Doctor Honoris Causa (1997).

After his death, the Provincial Council of Cádiz, together with other entities, created the Fernando Quiñones Foundation.

Honorary distinctions

• Predilect Son of the Province of Cadiz (1998)