Ignacio Aldecoa
Encyclopedia
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
Biography
José Ignacio de Aldecoa was born in Vitoria-GasteizVitoria-Gasteiz
Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital city of the province of Álava and of the autonomous community of the Basque Country in northern Spain with a population of 235,661 people. It is the second largest Basque city...
on 24 July 1925, the first child of Simón de Aldecoa and Carmen Isasi. He had a sister called María Teresa, born in 1927. Ignacio's father was a middle class artisan who ran a family business in industrial decoration and restoration inherited from his father, Laureano de Aldecoa. The young Aldecoa was affectionately known as Iñaki in the home and enjoyed a happy and lively childhood marred only by his experience of school.
Aldecoa studied in the Arts Faculty at the University of Madrid
University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a public university in Madrid, Spain, and one of the oldest universities in the world.The University of Madrid may also refer to:* The Autonomous University of Madrid, a public university founded in 1968...
. He lived later in the United States of America. His first published works were collections of poetry, published in 1947 and 1949. El fulgor y la sangre
El fulgor y la sangre
El fulgor y la sangre is the first novel written by Spanish writer Ignacio Aldecoa, first published in 1954. Brilliance and blood is the meaning in English.-Short synopsis:...
was his first novel, published in 1954. It failed to win the important Premio Planeta by just one vote. El fulgor forms part of a projected trilogy: the first part, El fulgor deals with the Civil Guard; the second (Con el viento solano, 1956), deals with to some extent with gypsies, traditional enemies, not to say victims, of the Guards; the third part, Los pozos, never appeared but apparently dealt with bullfighters. The link between the three is that in the first part a guard is murdered by a gypsy; the flight to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
and eventual surrender of the killer (Sebástian Vázquez) are related in part two; Vázquez is a friend of the bullfighters and something of an aficionado of the sport - this may have been what leads to the final part.
Aldecoa was a fairly prolific writer, he produced about half a dozen novels and as many books of short stories as well as some travel books. He belongs to that second generation of post war novelists who (unlike Cela, Carmen Laforet, Miguel Delibes, e.g.) were still very young when the war ended and had no direct personal involvement in it. Within the obvious limits dictated by prudence, Aldecoa seeks to approach the issue of the Civil War impartially in El fulgor, which contains many flashbacks and reminiscences of the 1930s, though set in 1948.
His narrative work reflected the neorealism current in Spain in the 1950s, and his stories have the flavour of an experience felt and lived. He was also a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and broadcaster
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
, and wrote four movie scripts
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
.
Aldecoa died in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
Works published
- El fulgor y la sangreEl fulgor y la sangreEl fulgor y la sangre is the first novel written by Spanish writer Ignacio Aldecoa, first published in 1954. Brilliance and blood is the meaning in English.-Short synopsis:...
(1954) - Con el viento solano (1956)
- Los pozos