Carlos Casares Mouriño
Carlos Casares Mouriño ( August 24, 1941 in Ourense - March 9, 2002 in Nigrán ) was a Galician writer and politician.
Life
Carlos Casares was born in Ourense in 1941 as the second of three children in a middle class family. When he was three years old, his family moved to Xinzo de Limia , where his father worked as a teacher. In this rural area he was in close contact with the Galician language.
His family was very religious. Therefore he was sent from 1952 to 1957 to the seminary in Ourense, where he received a humanistic education. During these years he experienced severe oppression as a speaker of the Galician language. This stimulated his non-conformist way of thinking, which led him to his first literary contribution, a secret magazine called El averno (The Underworld).
Casares then left the seminar and finished the last year of secondary school in self-study. He therefore had a lot of free time to start his literary work. He received first prize in a writing competition in Ourense, which enabled him to meet the Galician intellectual Vicente Risco .
After finishing school, Casares studied philosophy and language from 1961 to 1967, specializing in Romance philology at the University of Santiago de Compostela . There he met Arcadio López-Casanova and, thanks to this, Ramón Piñeiro , who had a great influence on Casares and involved him in the cultural movement against the dictator Francisco Franco . Casares became part of the ADE ( Asociación Democrática de Estudiantes , Democratic Student Union) and FELIPE ( Frente de Liberación Popular , People's Liberation Front), where he “discovered Marxism and felt like a Marxist”. However, during his time at the university he did not forget his literary work. In 1965 he published various stories in the magazine Grial . In 1967 his first work, Vento Ferido , came out.
After completing his studies, he returned to Xinzo and looked for a job as a teacher. In Viana do Bolo he was employed as an assistant teacher at the Colegio Libre Asociado in 1969. There, however, there were conflicts with the headmaster, as Casares organized activities that were not tolerated by the Frankist state. He was then forbidden to continue teaching in Galicia . He therefore moved to the Basque Country and worked there as a teacher, but later returned to Galicia.
In 1971 he met the Swede Kristina Berg (1948–2012) on a train journey, whom he married that same year. Casares then visited Sweden regularly and discovered an open, democratic and progressive society there. His two children were also born in Sweden.
In 1974 Casares got a job as a Spanish teacher in Cangas do Morrazo . A year later he won the Galaxia publishing house's literary prize for the publisher's 25th anniversary with the novel Xoguetes para un tempo prohibido , in which he portrayed his generation. He was subsequently recognized as one of the most innovative and significant emerging voices in Galician narrative prose. He also studied the works of other Galician intellectuals and wrote essays on them. In 1977 he became the youngest member of the Real Academia Galega (Royal Galician Academy).
In addition to his work as an essayist, Casares did not neglect literature and continued to publish respected works. He wrote Os escuros soños de Clío (1979), Ilustrísima (1980), Os mortos daquel verán (1987), Deus sentado nun sillón azul (1996) and O sol do verán (2002). He also wrote numerous children's books and translated works by other writers into Galician.
Carlos Casares was also active in politics in the years after Franco's death in addition to his work as a writer. He was one of the initiators of a manifesto called Realidade Galega (Galician Reality), the aim of which was to achieve the status of autonomy similar to that of Catalonia and the Basque Country . Casares and his friend and partner Ramón Piñeiro were accepted into the Spanish Socialist Workers Party ( Partido Socialista Obrero Español ) and became members of the first Galician Parliament in 1981.
In parliament, both campaigned to create a language policy for Galicia. A corresponding law was approved in 1983. A new institution called Consello da Cultura Galega (Galician Culture Council) was also set up as part of their work.
However, the political work did not correspond to Casares' ideas, which is why he did not run for election again. Instead, he focused on culture and was chairman of the Consello da Cultura Galega from 1996 to 2002. He also directed the publishing house Galaxia (1986-2002) and the magazine Grial .
In the 1990s, Carlos Casares traveled extensively and participated in numerous conferences. He took part in the PEN International Congress in Maastricht , Toronto and Santiago de Compostela , was part of the Literary Colloquium in Berlin and taught the Galician language in cities around the world, such as New York .
Carlos Casares died of a heart attack on March 9, 2002.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Author Carlos Casares. Retrieved March 25, 2020 (Galician).
- ↑ a b c d e f O Día das Letras Galegas de 2017. In: Real Academia Galega. Retrieved March 25, 2020 (Galician).
- ↑ a b biography of Carlos Casares. Fundación Carlos Casares, accessed March 25, 2020 (Galician).
- ↑ Victor F. Freixanes: Unha Ducia de galegos; Carlos Casares. Os dereitos do escritor . 1976, p. 273-294 .
- ↑ Tucho Calvo: Carlos Casares. O conto da vida . La Vox de Galicia, ISBN 978-84-9757-100-5 .
- ↑ Interview with Kristina Berg after the death of Carlos Casares. March 5, 2002, retrieved March 25, 2020 (Galician).
- ↑ a b Parlamento de Galicia (ed.): Carlos Casares no Parlamento de Galicia . ISBN 978-84-7836-118-2 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Casares Mouriño, Carlos |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Casares, Carlos |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Galician writer and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 24, 1941 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ourense |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 9, 2002 |
| Place of death | Nigrán |