1972: Xose Luis Mendez

1972

Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín - Spain

Imprisoned

Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín was born in August 1938 in Ourense, Spain. He is a Galician writer and poet and widely considered the foremost representative of Galician literature. Ferrín studied philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela and, in 1956, he won first prize in a literary competition at the Minerva Festival. He went on to study Romanic philology at the University of Madrid the following year. Around the same time, he became involved in the Galician nationalist movement and in 1958 helped to found the Galician cultural group Brais Pinto. In 1964 Ferrín also helped to set up the Unión do Pobo Galego (the Galician People's Front), a radical left-wing nationalist group, and during the 1960s became immersed in other left-wing and Galician nationalist groups.

As a result, Ferrín came to the attention of the Franco regime, and between 1967 and 1980 he was detained three times as a result of his political activity. The first time, in 1967, he was arrested for producing ‘illegal propoganda' - a charge that was later dropped. In 1969, Ferrín was charged with producing ‘illegal propaganda' and sentenced to two years in prison. When, in 1972, Ferrín was again imprisoned, he began to write from his prison cell under the pen-name Heriberto Bens. 1980 saw the publication of Poesia enteira de Heriberto Bens, with a foreword by Ferrín himself - a fictional account of the literary adventures of Bens. He spent a further period in prison in in 1980 on accusation of possessing weapons, a charge of which he was acquitted after spending three months in gaol.

Ferrín has written a large number of poetry and prose fiction over the past 50 years. His first, Voce na néboa (Voice in the Fog), was published in 1957, and his first novel, Arrabaldo do norte (Northern Quarter), appeared in 1964. He has since gone on to publish nine poetry collections, and numerous novels and essays. He is seen as a key figure among a generation of Galician writers who, despite emerging on the literary scene during a period of great repression under Franco, adopted a radical stance and refusing to use any language other than Galician. In 1999 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ferrín continues to write and to be engaged in politics. For many years he has been a columnist in the newspaper Faro de Vigo and directs the journal A Trabe de Ouro. Ferrín is also a member of the Galician Royal Academy and doctor honoris causa from the University of Vigo.

Writing Sample:

A few windows closed; and various figures which we had glimpsed hanging out clothes on the balconies of Bande disappeared. Turning a corner, our squad came across a man of about forty wearing a corduroy jacket and trousers, the black button of mourning on his striped shirt, and a small beret, cocked to one side. He paled - I saw in his eyes a boundless look of fear - and moved off to the middle of the road, showing, by the speed of his steps, total submission before us. He thrust up an arm to hail:

'Arriba España!' with hoarse humility.

'We didn't hear that! Louder!' Fernando Salgueiro barked, with the most savage look in his repertoire.

'Arriba España! Arriba Espania!' the man shouted immediately, in a husky voice deformed by terror. We exchanged glances and burst out laughing, as we continued on our way towards the inn. Of course, we comrades always used to have a bite to eat after the dawn purges.

A small group of us from Verin had gone out that day in Fernando's cream Ford, up to the Funiolo. The Caballero, who lived in Cualedro, had wanted to come with us. Before sunrise, the squad from Celanova had marched six men out of the monastery and taken them up to the Furriolo, in a van that had been requisitioned from Celso de Poulo's family, after he had been killed in the first few days. We rubbed out all six of them there, in a ditch. The owner of the inn was happy to see us.

'Long live the Camisas Viejas!' he exclaimed, laughing.
Fernando cut him short. 'Shut up, you fool!'

'Shall I go and let the others know?'

'Not a word! We're travelling incognito today...'

The Falange from Verin had got it in for the worst elements who were working on the railway. Wherever there was work, the poison was there too. That morning our comrades from Celanova had brought us a nice present. Four trade unionists from Vilar de Barrio, one of the heads of the Sociedade de Corrichouso and the cross-eyed Sevillian who had been the right-hand man of the Marxist mayor of A Gudiña (the Devil take him!).

From ‘Them' in Them and other stories, translated by John Rutherford, Xelís de Toro and Benigno Fernández Salgado. (Aberystwyth : Planet, 1996). ISBN: 0950518840.