Francisco Brines was a generational companion of several writers who opposed -in verse or prose- the Franco regime. In addition, he was described as “a great metaphysical poet” and part of his production makes up one of the vertices of Spanish poetry in the second half of the 20th century.
The Spanish poet Francisco Brines, who died at the age of 89, was the last living representative of the generation of 50. He was known for his defense of poetry as an exercise in tolerance. Cervantes Prize 2020, an award that he received at his home in Oliva (Valencia) just eight days ago from the hands of the kings, with which he culminated a career full of recognitions. Academic of the Royal Spanish Academy, he received, among other recognitions, the Adonais Prize for Poetry (1959), the Critics Prize (1966), the National Poetry Prize (1987), the National Prize for Spanish Letters to the group of his work (1999) and the Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana (2010).
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He was born on January 22, 1932 in Oliva. After studying at the Jesuits in Valencia, he went to the Spanish universities of Valencia, Deusto and Salamanca to obtain a degree in Law, and to Madrid to study Philosophy and Letters. Throughout his career, he made compatible his poetic production with his work as a university professor. He was a reader of Spanish literature at the University of Cambridge and a professor of Spanish at the University of Oxford. His poetry is characterized by a melancholic tone. He oscillates between the gloss of his native land and the care of the beauty of his verses. The main theme of its production is the passage of time, the decay of all that is alive, the degraded condition of the human being subjected to its limitations.
He was a generational companion of other illustrious writers who opposed -in verse or prose- the Franco regime, such as José Ángel Valente, Claudio Rodríguez, Ángel González, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Carlos Barral, José Agustín Goytisolo, Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana María Matute or Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio. He was described as “a great metaphysical poet” and part of his production forms one of the vertices of Spanish poetry of the second half of the 20th century. His first book, Las brasas , was published in 1959 and with it he won the Adonais Prize. He then published Words in the Dark , which won him the National Critics Award in 1967.
This same year he also won the Valencian Literature Prize. In 1987 he received the National Prize for Literature for The Autumn of the Roses (1986), one of his best known and most popular books, made up of sixty poems written over ten years. The following year he entered the theatrical world and revised and adapted the text of El alcalde de Zalamea , whose version was premiered in November of that year by the Spanish Classical Theater Company, under the direction of José Luís Alonso.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsIn 1990 he presented, together with other members of the poetic generation of the fifties, the book Encuentro con los 50 . In that generation there are also poets such as Jaime Gil de Biedma, José Ángel Valente and José Agustín Goytisolo, as well as the novelists Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Ana María Matute, Carmen Martín Gaite, Luis Martín Santos and Luis Goytisolo. In 1998 he was recognized with the Fastenrath Prize, awarded by the Royal Spanish Academy, for his work The Last Coast (1995), a melancholic piece with which he remembered his childhood. In 1999 he received the National Prize for Spanish Letters for his entire poetic work. A year earlier he published his Anthology .
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Elected member of the Royal Spanish Academy of the Language on April 19, 2001 to occupy the ‘X’ chair, vacant since the late playwright Antonio Buero Vallejo, he entered the institution on May 21, 2006 with the speech Unity and personal closeness in the poetry of Luis Cernuda , one of the poets who most influenced his verses. Shortly afterwards, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in the academic opening ceremony of the new 2001-2002 academic year. In 2003 he published La Iluminada Rosa Negra and, a year later, Amada vida mía . “I try not to publish any poem that I am not satisfied with,” said the author before remembering that when he sees the light it is no longer his “but the reader’s.” In 2010 he won the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, which recognizes the relevant literary contribution to the common cultural heritage of Ibero-America and Spain, made by a living author.
His works include Las brasas , Muerte de Sócrates , The innocent saint , Words to the dark , Insistence on Luzbel , Young muse , The autumn of the roses, The rumor of time: anthology , The last coast , Selection of poems and My beloved . In 2008 the anthology All faces of the past was published , a selection of his poems. He also published the essays Encounter with the 50 and Writings on Spanish poetry: From Pedro Salinas to Carlos Bousoño . In October 2013, a score of poets, teachers and scholars of his poetry, paid a tribute to him in the Spanish city of Seville and described him as “one of the most influential Spanish poets” of the last century and what we have of this .
In 2019, Brines promoted the creation of a foundation that bears his name and that will award two literary prizes, one in Spanish and the other in Catalan, which will serve to preserve his legacy, as well as a library of some 30,000 volumes and his art collection . On April 23, he participated in the celebration of the Day of the Book, reading, with difficulty, this poem: “As if nothing had happened / That is my summary and my epitaph is in it./ Speak my nothing live / and he looks into a mirror that does not reflect anyone ”. On May 12, he received the Cervantes Prize and just three days later he underwent emergency surgery for a hernia at the Gandía Hospital, where he died.
