Alejandro Finisterre

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Alexandre de Fisterra (Spanish: Alejandro Finisterre , actually Alexandre Campos Ramírez ; born May 6, 1919 in Fisterra , Galicia , † February 9, 2007 in Zamora , Castile-León ) was a Spanish poet , writer and inventor. In 1937 he received the first patent for a foosball table .

youth

The Fisterra lighthouse

Alexandre Campos was born in the fishing village of the same name as the son of a telegraph operator who worked in the lighthouse at Cape Finisterre . Finisterre is officially called Fisterra in Galician today . Alexandre lived there until he was five. Then his parents moved with him to A Coruña . At the age of 15 he moved to Madrid , where he graduated from high school.

Shortly after starting school in Madrid, the father had to close his shoe workshop for financial reasons. Since Alexandre had nine siblings, the family could no longer afford the private school he attended. The director therefore had him correct the schoolwork of lower-class students, with which the school fees were paid.

He also worked as a bricklayer's assistant in construction and later in a printing company. In Madrid, Alexandre also met the writer, literary scholar and diplomat León Felipe . Together with Rafael Sánchez Ortega, they published the magazine Paso a la juventud , which they sold on the street.

Hospitalization; Invention of a foosball table

Fisterra was buried in November 1936 during the bombing of Madrid by the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War . He was seriously injured and taken to Valencia , a stronghold of the Republican camp, and from there to the hospital in Montserrat , 25 km from Valencia. Finisterre, who was then 17 years old, met other children and young people in the hospital who, like him, could not play football because of their injuries . Based on table tennis, he had the idea of ​​building a table football game . He entrusted his friend Francisco Xavier Altuna, a carpenter from the Basque Country, with the construction of the first copy. However, he did not succeed in using his invention industrially because the Spanish toy factories, most of which were located in the region around Valencia, were engaged in weapons production during the war. Finisterre patented his invention in Barcelona in January 1937, as did a score-turning aid that he had built for a pianist he was in love with.

exile

Finisterre initially fled on foot across the Pyrenees to France, where his patent copy was destroyed by the constant rain. After the civil war he first returned to Spain and finished his studies in the humanities. In 1947 he emigrated again to France, as he saw no future for himself in Spain under Francisco Franco . He lived in Paris and found that a friend from the hospital, who had since been killed as a member of the Marxist POUM in the resistance against Franco, had applied for a patent for his invention in France.

He managed to get a cash payment from the Spanish manufacturers of the table football in order to emigrate to Quito in Ecuador . There he founded the literary magazine Ecuador 0 °, 0 ′, 0 ′ ′ in 1952 , which appeared until 1977 and each issue was dedicated to poets from one country. The second edition was published in Guatemala , where Finisterre had now emigrated. He lived in Guatemala City and after making improvements to his model, he mass-produced foosball tables, which grew into a successful business. After a military coup by right-wing Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas (1954), Finisterre gradually lost his business, as he was politically persecuted under the new regime as a practicing leftist and acquaintance of the ambassador of the government in exile of the Spanish republic. In previous years he had brought documents to Mexico several times for the ambassador of the government in exile. He was subjected to several kidnapping attempts and was ultimately supposed to be taken to Madrid against his will. On the flight, Finisterre reportedly threatened the pilot successfully by saying that he would detonate a bomb. He had previously wrapped the soap from the on-board toilet in silver paper. He was let off the plane in Panama City . Finisterre therefore described himself as the "first hijacker in history".

He then came to Mexico in 1956, where he met friends and well-known poets and authors again. He devoted himself to the visual arts and worked as a publisher and editor. He continued to publish Ecuador and founded and ran the publishing house Editorial Finisterre Impresora . Works by various poets have also appeared there, including León Felipe and Juan Larrea . Finisterre was also the publisher of Ernesto Cardenal's first volume of poetry . During this time he traveled to Spain several times, among other things to prepare anthologies by Galician-speaking authors.

Return to Spain

After Franco's death (1975) he returned to Spain. He first lived in Aranda de Duero , continued to work as a writer and was a (non-numerical) member of the Real Academia Galega , the Royal Galician Academy. He later moved to Zamora , where he managed the legacy of his friend and poet León Felipe , who came from the area around the city, as executor . He left this to the city of Zamora in exchange for a compensation payment, but was dissatisfied with what he saw as the inadequate conservation practice.

Until his death, Finisterre was married to the singer María Herrero .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Eaude: Alejandro Finisterre - publisher and inventor of table football, hey what exiled by Franco. In: The Guardian . February 24, 2007, accessed February 16, 2015 (English, obituary).
  2. ^ Núria Navarro: Alejandro Finisterre, editor, poeta, inventor del futbolín. (No longer available online.) In: El Periódico . May 28, 2004, archived from the original on January 7, 2012 ; accessed on February 16, 2015 (Spanish, interview).
  3. ^ Xosé Manuel Pereiro: La batalla final de Alejandro Finisterre. In: El País . November 29, 2006, Retrieved February 16, 2015 (Spanish).
personal data
SURNAME Finisterre, Alejandro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alexandre Campos Ramírez (real name); de Fisterra, Alexandre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish poet, writer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Fisterra (Galicia)
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 2007
Place of death Zamora (Spain)