Although he lived a good part of his life in Madrid, where in the past aspiring writers from all over Spain had to make pilgrimages in search of fortune, he did not forget Andalusia on a single page. And in Andalusia, more precisely in that Cádiz that he adored and where he spent his summers, Antonio Hernández, cultural agitator, founder of the Andalusian Association of Literary Critics, writer of a vast and rich work in all fields, from poetry to novels or essays, among which a unique novel stands out: Betis, the green march, revealing his passion for football and the green and white team.
Born in Arcos de la Frontera (Cádiz) in 1943, he remembers being an assistant to a ditero as a child, while he was dazzled by the music of Platero and I. The only advice he received in his early days was from another great poet, his compatriot Julio Mariscal, who warned him not to write with spelling mistakes: “they won’t take you to jail.” From a stay in Majorca, working in a hotel, he returned with his first book, The sea is an afternoon with bellswho won the Adonais Prize.
Once settled in the capital, he frequented the Café Gijón, where many knew him as NoniHe has received attention and praise from figures as diverse as Vicente Aleixandre and Francisco Umbral, and has established himself as a poet with titles such as Black sheep, Where the light shines, Metaorie, Homo Loquens, With three wounds me, Clothing, Lunar Field either duckweedHe also began to make a name for himself as a narrator with novels such as French lullaby for sleeping either Spring will laugh again.
Shortly before he launched the aforementioned project Betis, the green marchwhich has become a reference title in football literature and a pocket gospel for the fans of the club from Avenida de la Palmera in Seville. He invented lucky expressions, such as “Betis is a fighting cock that gives you goosebumps”, and he joked that former president Lopera appeared to him at night with a crest and a crowing. To the other team of his loves, the Cádiz Football Club, he also dedicated a volume of stories entitled South Objective.
Injustices and omissions
At the same time, he began to develop a work of essays very attentive to the injustices and oversights that can occur in the field of literature, in a line that would be a constant in his life. He thus warned against certain dubious activities in the creation competitions in Literary prizes, something nostra?and brought his perspective on the Middle Century generation in The poetics of the 50s. A disinherited promotion.
The same attitude led him to found, in the mid-90s, the Andalusian Association of Literary Critics, being for several years president of its annual awards. This group was initially associated with the so-called Poetry of Difference, a poetic front created in opposition to the so-called Poetry of Experience defended by authors such as Luis García Montero, Felipe Benítez Reyes, Luis Muñoz or Luis Alberto de Cuenca, among others. others, accused of forming a power lobby and accumulating public literary awards in Spain. The confrontation provoked a noisy exchange of accusations and acid invectives that gradually calmed down. The Association has continued on its path until today, although Antonio Hernández has handed over the baton of its presidency after holding it for twelve years.
Cadiz has won the National Critics’ Prize twice: in 1993 for the collection of poems sacred form and in 2013 by New York after death; For this book he also received the National Poetry Prize in 2014. In 1994 he won the Andalusian Novel Prize for Cold blooda work of bullfighting transcription that revealed another of his characteristics, his keen sense of humor. Two years later, with Raigosa is dead. Long live the king!won the Alfons el Magnànim Literature Prize of Valencia awarded by the Provincial Council. His next novel, wedding dresswas proclaimed, just like Cold bloodas the best of the year by the Spanish television program Negro Sobre Blanco. His latest narrative work, The Treasure of Juan Moraleswon the Ciudad de Torremolinos International Novel Prize in 2016.
From me to us
Among the other awards of his career, we can cite the Teresa de Ávila National Literature Prize, convened by the City Hall of this city: Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillén, Miguel Hernández, Leonor de Soria, Tiflos, Despeñaperros, Gil de Biedma, José María Lacalle or Vicente Aleixandre in poetry, José María Pemán and Manuel Alcántara in journalistic articles.
He collected all his poetry under the title Insurrections (1965-2007)and regarding its launch, he commented in an interview for The Andalusian Post Office. “Mine has been a poetry of commitment to man, at all times it has gone from the me to the we, with a strong presence of others, especially of the dispossessed class, which occupies a very special place in my verses,” he said. “It is not that it has been irreverent – although at one point too – but it has certainly never been a conformist, trivial, trivial, aestheticizing, anodyne poetry.” As he would never be himself.
