Miguel Delibes in 10 memorable characters: Daniel, El Mochuelo, Azarías, Menchu, Cayo ...

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• Exhibition: Portrait of Miguel Delibes in wood, paper and voice

«I spent my life disguising

as

others (...) I was not so much

as the characters I represented in this literary carnival.

They are, therefore, in large part my biography ”, said Miguel Delibes in the Paraninfo of the University of Alcalá de Henares when he received the Cervantes Prize in April 1994. Let us travel today, through 10 of them and as many books that starred on the day that commemorates the centenary of his birth.

(

, 1950) After

cypress bra is elongated

Y

, the writer from Valladolid found his tone with this novel that recounts the memories of an 11-year-old boy from the village on the night before traveling to the city to study high school.

In those insomnia hours, he will remember his friends Roque, Moñigo and Germán, El Tiñoso, together.

"His was a small, withdrawn and vulgar village" (one reads in the book), with a forge, inn, tavern and school.

"The earth gave off a pleasant mist of dampness and cow excrement," which Daniel the Owl likes so much.

He only aspires to be a cheesemaker, have a couple of cows, go out with the shotgun, fish for trout and have a game of bowling.

(

, 1955) Lorenzo is nothing else than a high school janitor obsessed with hunting.

Very Delibes character, who defined himself as a «hunter who writes».

Both of them need nothing other than shotgun, dog and boot, as that noble man wrote.

And as a reward they do not expect more than a trophy (perhaps a partridge) and a snack.

Eloy has a Boar of 16, is left-handed and gets up early on weekends with his dog Doly, tricks the electricity meter and sells the fur of foxes.

He gave Eloy long life in

(1958) and in

(1995) Don Eloy (

, 1959) The day of retirement has come for this municipal official "after 53 uninterrupted years of service."

And now?

«Do you know Isa?

The red leaf has come out in the smoking booklet », Delibes writes about that warning that arrives when the end of the leaves is near and the character believes that it is also about life.

Don Eloy longs for youth just as he dreamed of retiring then.

"He had plenty of time everywhere like too baggy clothes."

(

, 1962) What he could not report through the newspaper

(of which he was director since 1958) to denounce the abandonment of the countryside of Castilla, he did it with this novel to circumvent censorship.

Nini is a smart and wise child.

Neither the weather, nor the fields, nor the birds keep secrets for him, despite his brief 11 years.

A child with supernatural powers.

The clean and hard voice of its creator about the desolation in nature.

(

, 1966) Monologue of a woman before the corpse of her husband in which she reviews their lives together.

Reproaches, complaints, misunderstanding.

Guilt, loneliness, isolation.

Truths and half lies.

The novel is linked to the unforgettable theatrical performance of Lola Herrera.

(

, 1978) To a town in ruins where only two neighbors remain, three candidates arrive in an electoral campaign who will be amazed at the strength and natural wisdom of a Cayo that disarms them.

(

, 1981) Paco Rabal left for the history of cinema the role of a peasant with a pure soul faithful to his "pretty milana" in front of the unscrupulous young man of the farm where they poorly live.

Piercing.

(

, 1983) Short, stocky, single, retired journalist and a healthy patient.

This is Eugenio, who begins an epistolary relationship with a widow from Seville whom he imagines beautiful and understandable.

Until they meet in Madrid.

(

, 1991) Seventeen years after the death of his wife, Ángeles de Castro, Delibes wrote this monologue (largely autobiographical) in which the illness and the politically motivated arrest of a daughter and her husband drown an artist in crisis (and the reader).

"It's my balance," said Delibes of his wife.

José Sacristán embroiders the role in the theater.

(

, 1998) This man of commerce embraces the Protestant faith in Valladolid of the 16th century, which will be condemned to the stake by the long hand of the Inquisition.

Apotheosis end of the novel and the literary career of Don Miguel.

.

Do not miss the exhibition on Delibes that can be seen in the National Library (until November 15), whose curator is Jesús Marchamalo.

And four suggestions:

(The Sphere of Books) by César Alonso de los Ríos,

(Fórcola), by Javier Goñi, the classic

(Destiny) and the novel

(Destination,

editorial).

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