Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín
Biography
Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín is one of the outstanding writers of his generation. A highly proficient narrator and poet, he has numerous publications in the fields of fiction, poetry and essay. His collection With Gunpowder and Magnolias (1976) is considered one of the most emblematic poetry collections of the last fifty years and is one of five books contained in the bilingual Galician-Spanish edition Fundamental Poetry: 1976-2005 (Calambur, 2011). His best-known works of fiction include the novel Brittany, Emeraldine (1987), which draws on the work of authors like Jack London, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester and Álvaro Cunqueiro, and the book of short stories Borderlands (1991). His work contains elements of magic realism and centres on his Marxist, nationalist beliefs. Modern conflicts (Fascist repression, Spanish centralism) are given mythical settings, and the Galician language is pushed to its limits in providing literary expression. His stature is such that he was put forward for the Nobel Prize by the Association of Galician-Language Writers.
Photograph © MGV
BORDERLANDS synopsis
Borderlands (200 pages) is Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín’s most recent story collection and it won him both the Galician and the Spanish Critics’ Prizes when it came out in 1991. The title in Galician, Arraianos, refers to the raia or line between Galicia and Portugal and could be a reference to border lands, people or stories. The book might be called Borders or Bordering. The quote at the beginning of the book by Portuguese philologist Manuel Rodrigues Lapa seems to indicate people.
BORDERLANDS
LOBOSANDAUS
I
September 15th
My dear Uncle,
In accordance with your instructions, I am writing to put you au fait with the details of my arrival in this district of Nigueiroá and, more precisely, in the small town of Lobosandaus, the seat not only of the district capital but also of the local school to which I have been appointed thanks to your paternal protection and munificence.
Situated on the lower slopes of the range known as the Serra Grande, Lobosandaus has a population of one hundred inhabitants and has made a strong impression on me. It lies silent here as the oblique sun of these last days of summer lends it a Mediterranean air, dry and clear. The market place is a field of oaks several centuries old: it forms a terrace and is surrounded by cast-iron railings with two rosettes by Malingre, in the style of those at the Esplanade in Ourense, making an excellent belvedere that overlooks the plains through which meanders the small river known locally as Das Gándaras although in maps it is called Lucenza, as at its highest point it passes through the parish of that name. On the far side of that expanse of broom and brushwood, amongst whose undulations dolmens are not uncommon, looms an immense dark wall crowned by crags in unexpected shapes, like strange sculptures resembling fantasy organ pipes. This is the Serra known as do Crasto, which stands facing the Serra Grande. The boundary stones of Portugal are planted on its highest peaks. Even now, as I write you this letter, moments before I present myself at the school to take up my post, I can see from my room this awe-inspiring expanse of wasteland, on which the cattle belonging to these herdsmen graze and the early blossoms produce the clear, heavy honey that has brought such deserved prestige to the district of Nigueiroá. For the fact of the matter is, Reverend Uncle, that no sooner had I arrived than I was invited to take up my lodgings here at Aparecida’s, and found them highly satisfactory.
