José Manuel Castañón

José Manuel Castañón

Castañón with war wound

José Manuel Castañón (born February 10, 1920 in Pola de Lena , Asturias , † June 6, 2001 in Madrid ) was a Spanish writer. Although he fought on the side of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War , he was soon disappointed by the Franco regime and went into exile in Venezuela in 1958 . His best-known novel, Moletu-Voleva (published in Madrid 1956), is a story about the crazy lust for money and was particularly well received by critics and audiences.

Life

José Manuel Castañón was the third of seven children of the lawyer Guillermo Castañón and his wife Berta de la Peña. His father was a very intellectual and educated person who taught his son a love of literature and books. He spent his childhood with his parents. He enjoyed reading, and as a little boy immersed himself in literary books in his father's library, and at a very young age he knew that he wanted to be a writer.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he secretly left his parents' house to enroll in an infantry battalion. In 1937, at the age of 17, he was seriously injured in the arm in the battle for Oviedo and lost the feel of his right hand. Nevertheless, he reported back to the front and was promoted to lieutenant. In 1941 he was recruited as a one-year volunteer in the Blue Division .

On his return he married his cousin Nieves Escalada, with whom he had five children. He graduated in law from the University of Oviedo and worked in Oviedo for several years, including as a one-on-one lawyer.

Soon he began to express his dislike of the Franco dictatorship. Because of the unfair treatment of the defeated Republicans and the discriminatory trials, Castañón refused to participate in Franco's regime. He publicly protested against the dictatorship and called for fair treatment of the families of Republicans killed in the war and those injured or in hiding. As a result of his oppositional stance, he was imprisoned in 1953. Influenced by the personality of a fellow inmate, he wrote his first novel, Moletu-Voleva , in prison , which was published in Madrid in 1956 despite censorship. In 1957 his next novel, Bezana Roja, appeared . At that time he had already made the decision to go into exile. In 1958, he turned down an offer to serve as an infantry captain and instead asked the Spanish government to pay a pension to a war-wounded republican in the Spanish Civil War.

He then fled to France . From there he moved to Venezuela, where he was granted political asylum. His wife and five children followed him two years later. In Venezuela he worked as a freelance writer and now lived exclusively from his literary work. Most of his works were also published there. In 1987 Castañón was awarded the Order of Andrés Bello by the Republic of Venezuela in recognition of his contribution to the spread of Spanish literature and culture.

Jose Manuel Castañón loved poetry, so he was able to recite an extraordinary number of poems by heart and read them in front of an audience. He wrote a book about the Peruvian poet César Vallejo (" Pasión por Vallejo "). In 1983 he was made an honorary citizen of Santiago de Chuco, the birthplace of Vallejo.

During his service in the Blue Division Castañón had written a diary that was published in 1991 under the title " Diario de una Aventura ". He also wrote books on his political ideology and his internal struggle before breaking with the Franco regime, which he previously served out of conviction. In 1977, when the traces of dictatorship had already disappeared in Spain, he returned to Madrid. He died there on June 6, 2001.

plant

• Moletu-Voleva (1956)
• Bezana Roja (1957)
• Andrés cuenta su Historia (1962)
• Encuentro con Venezuela (1962)
• Confesiones de un vivir absurdo (1959)
• Una Balandra encalla en tierra firme (1958)
• Cuba, hablo contigo (1989)
• Cuba, sigo hablando contigo (1993)
• Passion for Vallejo (1963)
• Entre dos orillas (1975)
• Me confieso bolivarianamente (1982)
• Cuentos vividos (1976)
• Diario de una aventura (1991)
• En mi sentir revuelto (1992)
• Wed Padre y Ramón Gomez de la Serna

Web links

Commons : José Manuel Castañón  - Collection of images, videos and audio files