The Nobel Prize for Literature Camilo Jose Cela, who resided in Mallorca almost four decades, will not have no recognition on the island 20 years following his death. On the other hand, in other places of the Spanish geography, as in Galicia, his native land; Madrid, where he lived his last stage until he died on January 17, 2002 at the age of 85; La Rioja, Castellón and Barcelona have organized various activities regarding the figure and the legacy of one of the best writers of the 20th century in the Spanish language. Both the Ministry of Culture of the Govern and the vice-rectorate of the UIB (Universitat de les Illes Balears) area, which named him an honorary doctorate in 1980, affirmed on Tuesday that they will not carry out any initiative around the figure and legacy of the last Spanish Nobel, author of ‘La colmena’, among many other novels.
The first to honor the founder and director of the magazine ‘Papeles de Son Armadans’ will be Galicians, although in Madrid the 80th anniversary of the publication of ‘La familia de Pascual Duarte’ will also be remembered in the autumn. The National Library will do it with an academic seminar on a work that founded a new literary genre. Months before, in May, Barcelona will host a seminar entitled ‘Camilo José Cela. Word and image’, which has been organized by the University of Barcelona in collaboration with the Camilo José Cela Foundation. These talks will give continuity to the meeting held last year in the framework of the exhibition under the name ‘Carles Fontseré and Camilo José Cela. Bitter New York’, offered by the Galician Center for Contemporary Art.
Also in May, the aforementioned foundation of the writer participates in the exhibition ‘First editions and old books’, which will take place at the Museo de la Ciudad Casa de Polo, in Villareal (Castellón), as it will temporarily loan the first editions of ‘La family of Pascual Duarte’, ‘La colmena’ and ‘Journey to the Alcarria’. For its part, in La Rioja a new focus will be given to the life and work of the prolific author, because, together with the Government Delegation of the community, a exhibition focused on the figure of Camilo José Cela as senator, which allowed him to participate in the drafting of the Spanish Constitution.
The largest number of events of all kinds, although especially exhibitions, will take place in Galicia and were presented on the anniversary of his death, Monday, by the Xunta’s Minister of Culture, Román Rodríguez. That same day there was a floral offering to the Nobel Prize for Literature in the cemetery of Santa María de Adina, in Padrón (A Coruña). The commemorative programming throughout this year is “complete, diverse and participatory, covers the four provinces and includes actions and agreements with institutions outside Galicia”, as has already been outlined. He also highlighted the work of the Cela Foundation as a “dynamizing agent of the Galician and national cultural scene”, as well as a “reference in the management of his legacy”. And he referred to the “surveillance of Cela’s thought and literary production” thanks to his works and the work that the Foundation has been carrying out for more than three decades through the “research, protection and projection of the material generated by the Nobel”.
There will be four exhibitions and the first will be ‘Cela poliédrico’, an itinerant exhibition that will visit seven Galician cities focused on the different facets of the author and curious aspects of his career. The second will commemorate the publication of ‘La familia de Pascual Duarte’, his first major work, at the Camilo José Cela de Padrón Museum. The other two are Castellón and La Rioja, but in Galicia there will be more activities, such as a tribute on May 11, the day he was born, with a public reading of ‘A rosa’, where he narrates his childhood in Galicia, in addition to a sound fiction on RNE.
The Cela Foundation’s digital magazine ‘Cuadernos de Iria Flavia’ will also see the light of day, with articles on anniversaries or pieces by the protagonist, unpublished texts by new authors, contributions by researchers, writers or journalists and a section dedicated to visual arts. Y visits and workshops will be carried out for schoolchildren, as well as educational material, reported extensive programming to keep the Nobel legacy alive.
.
