Galician Lit 101
This coming Tuesday the seventeenth is the Día das Letras Galegas. (Day of Galician Literature) Each year a Galician writer is showcased. This year it's the poet Manuel María, who died in 2004. Only writers in Galician are showcased. For example, the Nobel winner Camilo José Cela will not be celebrated on this day because, though he was born in Iria Flavia just north of Padrón, he only wrote in Castilian.
Trying to find authors who wrote in Galician each year must also be quite an effort. Which is why some years the author the Real Academia Galega (the guardian of the language) chooses, is some obscure person whom nobody seems to recognize. A book or a poem is then cheaply distributed by some sponsors to help the public recognize his or her writing. Some years I think they just come up with a name out of desperation. Even if the person wrote in Galician, the reason they are not known is because the quality of the writing is second-rate. Or because he was a specialist writer, writing only in his field. Last year's choice was a historian and ethnographer. He wrote mainly for his fields.
Other years it's a famous poet or writer. One was Frei Martín Sarmiento from the eighteenth century who wrote mostly in Castilian but also wrote a type of dictionary of Galician, where he explained some of the stranger words he had learned while living in Pontevedra. Another famous poet is Alfonso X the Wise. Though he was a king of Castile and wrote prose in Castilian, he chose Galician-Portuguese to write poetry. His Cantigas de Santa María are an example of our language before history divided Galician and Portuguese politically and grammatically.
The seventeenth will be a regional holiday. Most adults won't care about the writer chosen this year and won't bother to read any of his works. But the children will have had a week of special classes in school where they set aside the usual grind to read and discuss the poet. The only ones who are enthusiastic about this are the primary schoolers and the kindergartners. The rest are more enthusiastic about the day off. The original intention of the holiday was to make people aware of their literary heritage. Not many people care, and the sale of books in Galician is not very high.
At least there's another holiday on the calendar.
Trying to find authors who wrote in Galician each year must also be quite an effort. Which is why some years the author the Real Academia Galega (the guardian of the language) chooses, is some obscure person whom nobody seems to recognize. A book or a poem is then cheaply distributed by some sponsors to help the public recognize his or her writing. Some years I think they just come up with a name out of desperation. Even if the person wrote in Galician, the reason they are not known is because the quality of the writing is second-rate. Or because he was a specialist writer, writing only in his field. Last year's choice was a historian and ethnographer. He wrote mainly for his fields.
Other years it's a famous poet or writer. One was Frei Martín Sarmiento from the eighteenth century who wrote mostly in Castilian but also wrote a type of dictionary of Galician, where he explained some of the stranger words he had learned while living in Pontevedra. Another famous poet is Alfonso X the Wise. Though he was a king of Castile and wrote prose in Castilian, he chose Galician-Portuguese to write poetry. His Cantigas de Santa María are an example of our language before history divided Galician and Portuguese politically and grammatically.
The seventeenth will be a regional holiday. Most adults won't care about the writer chosen this year and won't bother to read any of his works. But the children will have had a week of special classes in school where they set aside the usual grind to read and discuss the poet. The only ones who are enthusiastic about this are the primary schoolers and the kindergartners. The rest are more enthusiastic about the day off. The original intention of the holiday was to make people aware of their literary heritage. Not many people care, and the sale of books in Galician is not very high.
At least there's another holiday on the calendar.
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