“ALLENDE EL MAR: EL CAMINO TRANSATLÁNTICO DE LA LITERATURA EN ESPAÑOL” (“BEYOND THE SEA: LITERATURE’S TRANSTLANTIC WAY IN SPANISH”) EXHIBITION

We have inaugurated the exhibition “Beyond the Sea: Literature’s Transatlantic Way in Spanish”, which may be visited in the hall of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the University of Extremadura. This sample, comprised of collections from the Writers’ Museum and coordinated by the Modern Art Centre of Madrid, intends to reflect the strength and capacity of the Spanish language to create bridges between the literary and editorial world of the different countries that speak it.

Besides the fact that Spanish is spoken by millions of people, it is also the official language in some twenty countries which in turn enrich it with their different social and cultural circumstances. This is the reason why, from a long time ago and due to different reasons, writers moved within these countries and thus provided their contribution, enabled mutual knowledge, created renovations and literary movements.

Part of the main publishers originated in Hispanic America where founded by Spaniards who left Spain and moved to some of the major capital cities of the new continent. Spanish illustrators contributed to the editions of Buenos Aires or Mexico and American artists to those published here.

This exhibition intends to reflect the traces that show this racking that took place in different senses, through the traces and marks left by writers, editors and illustrators throughout their lives and work. Books, letters, photographs, disks, dedications, posters, drawings, personal objects and other elements serve as instruments to point out this path, this intangible but real bridge made up by the shared word, where personalities, such as Rubén Darío have travelled renewing our poetry and introducing “modernism”. Main figures from the time of Latin-American writers, during the Second Spanish Republic, such as Federico García Lorca with his successful trip to Buenos Aires in 1933 walked along it to attend the premiere of Bodas de Sangre, produced by Lola Membrives, soon after its production in Madrid, and it was crossed by Rafael Alberti on his sad leave to exile, María Teresa León, María Zambrano, Rosa Chacel, Luis Cernuda, Max Aub and León Felipe, among others.

This exhibition, curated by Raúl Manrique Girón and Claudio Pérez Miguez, may be visited until 23 November 2018 at the University of Extremadura.