Rafael Alberti
| Rafael Alberti | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
December 16, 1902 El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Spain |
| Died | October 28, 1999 (aged 96) El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Spain |
| Spouse(s) | María Teresa León (1903-1988) |
Rafael Alberti Merello (16 December 1902 – 28 October 1999) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. He is considered one of the greatest literary figures of the so-called Silver Age of Spanish Literature, and he won numerous prizes and awards. He died aged 96. After the Spanish Civil War, he went into exile because of his Marxist beliefs. On his return to Spain after the death of Franco, he was named Hijo Predilecto de Andalucía in 1983 and Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad de Cádiz in 1985.
He published his memoirs under the title of La Arboleda perdida (‘The Lost Grove’) in 1959 and this remains the best source of information on his early life.
The Puerto de Santa María at the mouth of the Guadalete River on the Bay of Cádiz was, as now, one of the major distribution outlets for the sherry trade from Jerez de la Frontera. Alberti was born there in 1902, to a family of vintners who had once been the most powerful in town, suppliers of sherry to the crowned heads of Europe. Both of his grandfathers were Italian; one of his grandmothers was from Huelva, the other from Ireland. However, at some point, while they were handing down the business to the next generation, bad management resulted in the bodegas being sold to the Osbornes. As a result, Alberti’s father was no more than a commercial traveller for the company, always away on business, as the general agent for Spain for brands of sherry and brandy that had, before, only been exported to the UK. This sense of belonging to a “bourgeois family now in decline” was to become an enduring theme in his mature poetry. At the age of 10, he entered the Jesuit Colegio San Luis Gonzaga as a charity day-boy. During his first year, Alberti was a model student but his growing awareness of how differently the boarders were treated from the day-boys, together with the other ranking systems operated by the Jesuits, inspired in him a desire to rebel. In his memoirs, he attributes it to growing class conflict. He began to play truant and defy the school authorities until he was finally expelled in 1917. However, his family was then at the point of moving to Madrid which meant that the disgrace did not register on Alberti or his family as strongly as it might have done.
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