2023-10-31 18:43:57
“It is the heritage and spirit of literature that I want to enclose in this box.” This was stated by Manuel Longares, (Madrid, 1943), a very free and cult writer whom the Cervantes Institute honored this Tuesday for his 80 years and his unique career. The institution’s Letter Box thus keeps in box 1,091 his first story published in 1969 in the Revista de Occident, titled ‘In Aunt Enriqueta’s Automobile’. “It’s where everything begins,” said the author, referring to the beginning of his literary career. He deposited it next to the original typescript of ‘The Novel of the Corsé’ (1979), – “proof of the terrifying difficulty that the writer suffered when writing on a typewriter,” he said -, and two letters from his grandchildren María and Pablo written a few years ago. days and that no one has read.
And no one will do so until August 27, 2043, when the hundredth anniversary of his birth will be completed. Longares confessed that he hopes that then his grandchildren will meet at the Caja de las Letras to open the letters and see what the evolution is since it occurred to them to write what they have written – “a story, a poem or nothing.” , he ventured – to what is later collected as time passes. “It’s another way of conceiving writing, giving yourself over to a random destiny that will later be returned to you you don’t know how, whether as a Nobel Prize winner or in a beating,” she explained with the irony that characterizes her.
From Cervantes to Galdós
Longares was accompanied in the delivery of the legacy by the general secretary of the Cervantes Institute, Carmen Noguero, who described him as “one of the great narrators of contemporary literature in the Spanish language.” The writer’s brother, Vicente Longares, and the institution’s deputy director of Culture, Ernesto Pérez Zúñiga, were also at his side.
Longares represents, in Noguero’s opinion, the “essence of an author who brings together the best of the Spanish literary tradition with his own voice full of innovative proposals.” He noted that in his writings “a fine Cervantine irony shines, the endearing and sharp gaze of Galdós , to which is added the infinite humanity and the technical expertise that applies to the writings of Longares himself.
Manuel Longares surrounded by all the family and friends who participated in the tribute. Cervantes Institute
He also recalled the work as a journalist of the solitary narrator who worked with “deep intelligence” in publications such as Diario 16, El Sol, El Mundo and El País and “which for his dignity, honor and dedication” earned him the Mesonero Romanos Award in 2004.
Trained in journalism, law and Hispanic philology, Manuel Longares has written novels, short stories and essays. For them he received awards such as the National Critics’ Prize, awarded in 2001 for ‘Romanticism’, the Francisco Umbral and the Book of the Year award from the Madrid Booksellers’ Guild in 2011 for ‘The Four Corners’. In 2006 he won the Gómez de la Serna Prize for narrative for ‘Our epic’.
After the delivery of the legacy, a new issue of the literary magazine Barcarola was presented that is dedicated to Longares. Ernesto Pérez Zúñiga moderated a subsequent tribute in which Juan Bravo Castillo, founder and director of Barcarola, participated; Luis Mateo Díez, writer; Pilar Adón, writer and translator; Ángeles Encinar, philologist and coordinator of the publication; Joan Tarrida, editor of Galaxia Gutemberg; José María Pozuelo Yvancos, Hispanicist, and Juan Cruz Ruiz, editor, writer and journalist.
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