Luis Feria

Luis Feria (b. Santa Cruz de Tenerife; October 18, 1927 - f. ibid.; February 28, 1998), was a contemporary Canarian poet; in the words of critics such as José Carlos Mainer, Antonio Álvarez de la Rosa or Jorge Rodríguez Padrón, one of the loudest and most authentic voices of the Generation of 50, along with poets such as Claudio Rodríguez, Vicente Núñez or Antonio Gamoneda. He studied Pharmacy and Philosophy and Letters. Based in Madrid for almost thirty years, in 1978 he returned to his native island of Tenerife, leading a withdrawn and solitary life ever since, to the point that when he died at home, due to an asthma attack, two weeks passed until they found his corpse.

There is unanimity in dividing Luis Feria's work into two stages. The first of them is made up of the collections of poems Conciencia (1962), a title that won the Adonais prize in 1961, Fábulas de Octubre (1965, Boscán prize) and The funeral (1965). After a silence of more than fifteen years, during which, however, Feria did not stop writing, his second - and fertile - creative stage began, in which titles such as Calendas (1981) appear., Clepsidra (1983), Salutations (1985), Surrogation of Sister Emerita and other prodigies (1987), Of love i> (1988), Cuchillo casi flor (1989), Common House (1991), which was a finalist for the National Poetry Prize, Six querellas de amor (1991), Arras (1996) and Bestiario (1999).

Separate mention deserves his two installments in poetic prose, Dinde (1983) and Más que el mar (1986), for which he was a finalist for the National Poetry Prize.. Both works represent a prodigious approach to the feelings of childhood: curiosity, freedom, loneliness, and in the opinion of critics they are the best that their author has left us.

No less than the void (1988) and My house is my truth (2004) are two anthologies. For its part, Poetic Works and Stories (2000) includes almost all of Feria's production.

In 1993 he was awarded the Canary Islands Prize for Literature.