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Miguel Lorenci
Madrid
Domingo, 29 de diciembre 2024, 19:20
Manuel Chaves Nogales' works will enter the public domain in 2025. The name of the Andalusian journalist and storyteller stands out in the list published annually by the National Library of Spain, featuring creators whose works become public domain. This year, it includes those who passed away in 1944, allowing their works to be freely edited, reproduced, or distributed 80 years after their death.
The 2025 list includes 143 names, featuring writers, journalists, artists, musicians, as well as scientists, historians, folklorists, professors, and politicians. The list includes only four women, with notable figures such as Joaquín Álvarez Quintero and Eugenio Nadal. With the new year, a selection of their works will be available for free download in the Hispanic Digital Library.
"Either side would have shot me," Chaves Nogales (Seville, 1897 - London, 1944) used to say. The writer and journalist died in exile at the age of 46. Critic Miguel García Posada described him as "a giant among giants," praising his exceptional reporting, memorable interviews, and his independence of thought and analytical finesse, which he paid for with ostracism and exile.
A leading figure in storytelling in the first half of the 20th century, he wrote travel chronicles and interviewed prominent figures of his time, from Abdelkrim to the "ridiculous, grotesque, and unpresentable" Goebbels, including Churchill, the Negus, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Chaplin, and bullfighter Juan Belmonte, about whom he wrote a canonical biography.
The author of a vast and scattered journalistic work, he compiled his chronicles for Heraldo de Madrid in 'The Flight Around Europe by Plane. A Small Bourgeois in Red Russia,' documenting a 16,000-kilometer journey across much of Europe and Russia in 1928.
In Paris, he witnessed the arrival of the Nazis, which he described in 'The Agony of France' (1941). He fled to London, a refuge for exiles like Luis Cernuda and Arturo Barea. There, he wrote 'Blood and Fire. Heroes, Beasts, and Martyrs of Spain,' a stark denunciation of the atrocities committed by both sides during the war, a narrative on par with Max Aub, Ramón J. Sender, or Francisco Ayala. A contributor to major European newspapers, he helped revive the Havas agency and worked for the BBC in London, where he died and was buried.
Another Andalusian, Joaquín Álvarez Quintero (Utrera, 1873 - Madrid, 1944), gained fame as a playwright alongside his brother Serafín (who died in 1938 and whose works have been public domain since 2019). Together, they shaped early 20th-century theatrical tastes with their comedies, farces, and zarzuela librettos of great popularity.
Journalist, writer, essayist, columnist, and professor of Literature Eugenio Nadal Gaya (Barcelona, 1917-1944) published 'Cities of Spain' in 1943, a series of articles for the magazine Destino. He died at 27, and the magazine's team established a literary prize in his memory, now the oldest literary award. The first Nadal was awarded on January 6, 1945, to the young and unknown Carmen Laforet for her debut novel, 'Nada.'
Laura Albéniz (Barcelona, 1890 -1944) is the first woman on the list. A painter and illustrator, daughter of musician Isaac Albéniz, she modernized her craft and forged the Novecentista movement (Noucentisme in Catalan) through unique works that captured the spirit of her time.
Pedagogue and poet Maria Emília Furnó (Barcelona, 1877-1944) was the director of the Institut Feminal and author of the manual 'Nocions d'urbanitat i cortesía' ('Notions of Urbanity and Courtesy'), as well as several poetry books.
Emília Coranty Llurià (Barcelona, 1862-1944) was the first woman enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts of Barcelona, alongside Francisca Sans Benet de Montbrió. They were the only women among the 496 students of the 1885-1886 course. Awarded a scholarship in Rome, she met her future husband, painter Francesc Guasch.
Writer and teacher Isolina Muíños Búa (Pontevedra, 1866-1944) authored the 'Atlas of General and Regional Geography for Practical Exercises in Normal Schools' and contributed to the newspaper El Progreso from 1917.
The works of Enrique Díez-Canedo (Badajoz, 1879-Cuernavaca, 1944), a notable theatre critic, poet, and translator who died in exile in Mexico, will also enter the public domain in 2025. Ignacio Bolívar (Madrid, 1850-Ciudad de México, 1944), a naturalist who promoted science in Spain, presided over the Board for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research and directed the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Miguel Asín Palacios (Zaragoza, 1871-San Sebastián, 1944), a notable Arabist, translator, and philological, philosophical, and historical researcher; Benjamín Orbón (Avilés, 1877-Havana, 1944), a pianist and composer. After touring Spain and America as a concert pianist, he settled in Cuba, where he founded the Orbón Conservatory of Havana. A member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters of Cuba, his son Julián Orbón was one of the creators of the well-known melody 'Guantanamera.'
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