The writer Antonio Gala died at the age of 92

Playwright, novelist, poet and essayist Antony Gala passed away this Sunday 92 years old, the Board of Directors of the Antonio Gala Foundation and the family confirmed in a statement. The funeral chapel will be set up in the hall of the Antonio Gala Foundation and will be open this Monday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., reports Europa Press.

Antonio Gala was one of the most widely read – and most recognized – authors in Spanish, inside and outside Spain, a writer, playwright, poet and essayist with a complex personality, great elegance and immense culture. Born in Brazatortas (Ciudad Real) on October 2, 1936, Ángel Custodio Gala y Velasco always considered himself Cordovan by adoption having lived a large part of his life in this Andalusian city, which also had a great weight in his work. The foundation that bears his name has its headquarters in the ancient Umayyad capital.

The son of doctor Luis Galo Calva and Adoración Velasco, he was premature baby. He said that he wrote his first story when he was only four years old; at five, his first theater piece, and at the age of 14 he held his first conference at the Círculo de la Amistad in Córdoba.

He graduated in law in Seville and first in philosophy and literature, and later studied political and economic sciences in Madrid, where he obtained a doctorate in law. His first poems, which he published in magazines, belong to that university stage. And together with friends such as Gloria Fuertes and Julio Mariscal, he founded magazines Cistern and Archer of poetry.

In order to please his father, he opposed the State Attorney’s Office, but after efforts and pressure from his parents, he left and in 1958 entered the Carthusians from Jerez, where he spent almost a year, until he was expelled, reports Efe.

Then the bohemian phase begins and he works in different trades to earn a living. Upon his return to Madrid, he worked as a professor of art history and philosophy at various schools. His poetic work, beginning an intimate enemy (1959), awarded the Adonais poetry prize, continues with Sonnets of Zubije (1981) Cordovan songs (1994), Love songs (1997), Andalusian testament (1998) and Tobias’ song without a soul (2005), which the author himself considered his “literary testament”.

He lived for a year in Florence, where he managed the La Borghese gallery, and in Spain he began his fruitful theater career with The green fields of Edema (1963), which won the Calderón de la Barca National Theater Award, which he followed lost good dayswho won the National Award for Literature in 1972. lady’s rings (1973), Why are you running Ulysses? (1975), Peter Regalado (1980), Samarkand (1985), Carmen, Carmen (1988) i bum (1992).

He published his first novel in 1990. crimson handwriting, with which Planet won. After her, he announced Turkish passion (1993) and outside the garden (1995), both made into films, the rule of three (one thousand nine hundred and ninety six); suburb of god (1999); Statue pedestal (2007) or water papers (2009).

A prolific writer, many of them collected in books such as My conversations with Troyl (1981) – César González Ruano Prize for Journalism-, Autumn ladies’ notebook (1985); sound loneliness (1991) or a hollowcolumn title World since 1992, Gala has also written screenplays for television such as and finally hope and for series like if stones could talk (1985) or landscape with figures (1995) and even ventured into opera, Christopher Columbus.

Favorite son of Andalusia, he is a great expert on Arabic culture in Al-Andalus Spain, with titles such as Granada Nasrid (1992), Andalusian (1994) or compilation Cordoba Gala (1993).

During the eighties, he had a intense cultural life. He was the president of the Spanish Center of the International Theater Institute and the founding president of the Hispanic-Arab Friendship Society. And in the nineties, he was one of the promoters of the Association of Independent Writers and Journalists (AEPI).

Gala also has meaning in political affairs. In 1986, he actively participated in the Civic Platform, which advocated No in the referendum against NATO; supported the 1988 general strike; In 1993, he led the protests against the Citizen Security Law of then Interior Minister José Luis Corcuera and supported the 15M Movement.

In July 2011, from his column in World discovered that he had Colon cancer is difficult to remove. He fought the disease, not leaving the house, until June 2014, when he appeared very depressed at the presentation of the poetry awards that bear his name. A year later, he returned for an appointment after announcing that he was “cancer free” a few months earlier, in February 2015.

On November 20 of this year, he gave an emotional recorded speech that sounded like a farewell, during the Granada Tourism Awards 2015 ceremony. Gala, who did not travel to the Nasrid City due to his delicate health, intervened via a recording in which he confessed “feeling at last” .

One of his last public appearances was in April 2018, when he attended the Loewe Poetry Awards, presented to his former foundation fellow and great friend, Ben Clarke.

It was presented in 2017 Cordoba Galaan anthology that brings together the author’s texts about the Andalusian city from his literary work and expands the editions of the same name published in 1993.

In 2021, the house-museum of Antonio Gala was opened as a multidisciplinary cultural center of international orientation on the estate of La Baltasara in the town of Alhaurín el Grande in Malaga, where the writer lived.

Honorary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Córdoba and of Fine Letters and Noble Arts (2008), winner of the Critics Award, the Golden Quixote 1972-73, the National Screenplay Award 1973, the Audiovisual Media Award 1976, the Andalusian Literature Award 1989 ., Max de Honor 2001 and Journalist Award of the Human Rights Association, among others.