Salamanca, Jul (EFE).- The personal legacy of the writer Carmen Martín Gaite will be preserved and exhibited from the last quarter of this year at the International Center for Spanish at the University of Salamanca, the author’s hometown.
This is stated in the loan contract signed this Tuesday by the rector of the USAL, Ricardo Rivero, and the Minister of Culture of the Junta de Castilla y León, Gonzalo Santonja, to guarantee the conservation and public display of the files that comprise it. .
The collection of the Spanish author is made up of original and typewritten manuscripts, notebooks with notes prior to each of her literary works, and other works; personal and professional correspondence, posters, documents and personal mementos of her.
manuscripts and collages
There are also drawings and collages, theses, studies and translations of his work, press articles, audiovisual materials (photographs, videotapes, CD/DVD), books, magazines and other publications.
The originals will be kept in the CIE vault, located in the old Bank of Spain, a building that has been renovated but still has more than three hundred safe deposit boxes, vaults, a bunker and very narrow surveillance paths hidden in the semi-basement.
In recent years, the Ministry of Culture has been in charge of preserving the personal legacy of the author from Salamanca in the Library of Castilla y León.
Heritage of Castilla y León
This collection constitutes an important part of the cultural heritage of Castilla y León and of Spain, since, together with the knowledge of the writer herself, it allows access to first-hand testimony about the cultural and literary history of the country in the second half of the century. xx.
Martín Gaite, Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 1988 and Castilla y León Award for Literature in 1991, was one of the most important figures in Spanish intellectual life in the second half of the 20th century.
She was as a novelist, from her Nadal Award in 1957 for “Entre visillos”, but also for her essays, as a literary critic and even as a poet and also as a historian.
Interest in his work is increasing in the US
Interest in the author has increased notably inside and outside Spain, recalls the USAL, especially in American universities that investigate Spanish language and literature.
On May 11 it was announced that the Carmen Martín Gaite archive would reside in her native Salamanca, but at that time it was only said that her transfer from Valladolid to Salamanca would be after the municipal elections of 28-M.
The Ministry of Culture of the Junta acquired the author’s legacy from her sister and digitized it on a website that has contributed to an increase in studies on the Spanish writer, especially in the United States.
This transfer marks the beginning of the work to commemorate the centenary of the author’s birth in 2025, for when it is planned to “make a relevant exhibition, as well as a congress of substance on her literary figure”, according to the Ministry of Culture.
The archive is also fundamental content for the CIE, which was inaugurated last October and only since April has hosted an international chess tournament and an exhibition on the language of the Spanish Transition as its first activities.
The personal and literary documents of Carmen Martín Gaite will also live very close to the house where she was born, in the surroundings of the central Plaza de los Bandos.EFE