Miguel Hernández

Miguel Hernández Gilabert (October 1910 with Orihuela, province of Alicante - March 28th 1942 with Alicante) is the one of largest poets and Spanish playwright of the 20th century.

Wire of guard of sheep, and member of a phratry of seven children, of which three died in low age; it passed its childhood and adolescence between the school and the herd of his father.

But, 14 years old, it had to give up the school because his/her father required his assistance to work. However, its enthusiasm for the literature and poetry were so strong, that it spent long moments to the library, absorbed in the reading of the work of the great authors of the Siècle of Spanish gold such as Cervantès, Lope de Vega, Calderón of Barca or Luis of Góngora.

It also had, during its school short period, opportunity of meeting Jose Marin Gutiérrez alias Ramón Sijé, which will play later in its life a determining role.

Parallel to its literary studies as an autodidact, Miguel Hernández written; and in 1929 it publishes its first poem in the local weekly magazine of Orihuela El Pueblo . El Día , a daily newspaper of Alicante will offer also its pages to its beginnings.

In 1932, Miguel Hernández goes for the first time to Madrid; but it is without much success. But, at the time of its second stay in the capital Spanish, it meets the two large poets of Spanish language who are Pablo Neruda and Vicente Aleixandre.

March 9th, 1937, he marries Josefina Manresa, a woman of his native village. He has with her soon a son who will die prematurely in 1938.

Miguel writes not only thereafter for her late son, as in Hijo of the luz sank it there; but also for its second wire born in 1939.

When bursts the Guerre of Spain, it engages quickly with dimensions Républicains and fights some time in the fifth regiment. At the summer 1937, it takes by with the 2nd international congress antifascists authors.

In April 1939, Franco declares the end of the war; known what Miguel Hernández tries to flee Spain and to rejoin the Portugal. But, at the border, it is stopped by the police force Portuguese and given to the Spanish civil guard. It will be then to transfer from Huelva in Madrid, where it will run out part of its detention. It is during this period that he will write Nanas of the cebolla . It also remained in a prison of Seville.

In March 1940, he is condemned to death, a sentence which will be communié in 30 years period of imprisonment shortly after.

But Miguel Hernández dies on March 28th, 1942, in Alicante, in the prison Reformatorio of Alicante of the Tuberculose. He was the only member of the Generación of 27 not resulting from the middle-class, and not having received any academic formation.

Several of its poems were put in music by Paco Ibáñez, Joan Manuel Serrat…

Nowadays, the University of Elx bears its name.

Selected works

Perito in Lunas (1934)
El rayo that No ceased (1936)
Vientos LED pueblo me llevan (1937)
El hombre acecha (1938-1939)
Cancionero there Romancero de Ausencias (unfinished, 1938-1942)

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