The whispering voice is dead. He has left this world the voice that rocked us on the seesaw of his stories, stories that he reeled off with a soft cadence that seemed like a lullaby to calm the craving or the murmur of a fountain. Antonio Gala passed away yesterday at the age of 92 after a long fight against cancer, but he leaves behind the memory of his well-groomed demeanor, his beautifully decorated cane (he collected some 3,000), his elegance in clothing -almost always with a scarf protecting her throat– and her facility for softly saying phrases like fists. And, of course, he also leaves a quality poetic, dramaturgical and novelistic work, which enjoyed the affection of the public and critics.
In July 2011, from his column in El Mundo –an example of how journalism and literature can go hand in hand– he revealed that he was suffering from colon cancer that was difficult to remove. He was fighting the disease, without leaving his home, until June 2014, when, very dejected, he was seen at the delivery of the poetry prizes that bear his name. A year later, he returned to the appointment after announcing that he was “cancer free.” But illness did not make it easy for him and he forced him into a semi-retirement, which he broke in a few exceptions to attend some events. The burning chapel will be installed in the auditorium of the Antonio Gala Foundation, in Córdoba, and will remain open from 10 am to 5 pm today.
A precocious writer, at the age of five he wrote a short story and at seven, his first play. Concerns that made him stand out early and that led him to enter the University of Seville at just 15 years old to study Law. In addition, he enrolled for free in Madrid in two other careers: Philosophy and Letters and Political and Economic Sciences. During his university days he published his first poems in the Escorial, Platero and Cántico publications. His experience pleases him so much that he ends up founding two magazines: Aljibe and Arquero de PoesÃa, with Gloria Fuertes and Julio Mariscal Montes.
His poetic work began with Intimate Enemy (1959), a collection of poems that received the Adonais Poetry Prize. He continued with Sonnets de la Zubia (1981), Poemas cordobeses (1994), Poemas de amor (1997), Testamento andaluz (1998) and El poema de TobÃas desangelado (2005), which the author considered his “literary testamentâ€.
His fruitful theater career began with Los verdes campos del edén (1963), which won the Calderón de la Barca National Theater Award, which was followed by Los buenos dÃas perdidos, which won the National Literature Award (1972), Rings for a Lady (1973), Why are you running, Ulysses? (1975), Petra Regalada (1980), Samarkanda (1985), Carmen, Carmen (1988) and La truhana (1992).
But it was his entry into the novel, with The Crimson Manuscript (1990), winner of the Planet, which allowed him to access a wide reading public. After her, came La pasión turca (1993) and Más allá del jardÃn (1995), both brought to the big screen; The rule of three (1996); The outskirts of God (1999); The pedestal of the statues (2007) or The water papers (2009).
An interview that Jesús Quintero did with him and that was circulating on the networks yesterday reveals his facility for oral expression. The journalist asks her where she finds happiness, to which Gala responds with a whisper embellished with silences and elaborated as if she had written it before: “Happiness will come, if it has to come, and if not, they can repair it, because it is not essential either.” . Something else is essential for me and that is serenity […] Serenity is like a small tile in a large mosaic; expendable, minimal, confusing… but in its placeâ€.
Gala is the author of texts in which women play a fundamental role and this earned him a female audience who passionately read his novels, always loaded with brilliant eroticism, such as this text from El manuscript crimson: “Before being with Moraima I had I envy the peasants with large and forceful sex, powerful hands and broad shoulders, who dominate the land they love, and ensure the lives of their children without fuss. And he had also envied the women of such peasants, penetrated by them – shamelessly in summer, and almost covered in winter when night falls – over and over again; the peasant women who nibble on the cries of pleasure so as not to distract or annoy the person who provokes itâ€.
Gala disagreed gently, but forcefully, with the filmmaker Vicente Aranda, who adapted his novel La pasión turca (played by Ana Belén in the lead role), with changes that he did not like at all. Gala made him ugly, above all, that he turned the eroticism of the novel into something crude and inelegant. It happened on a television set, live, and Aranda defended himself with some difficulty. It became evident that Aranda was gifted with images and Gala had the gift of words.