| Content from Wikipedia under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license ⇔ Maps from OpenStreetMap under the ODbL license |
Rubén Caba
Rubén Caba | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1935 (age 90–91) |
| Occupations | writer, novelist |
Rubén Caba, born in Madrid on November 19, 1935, is a Spanish novelist, essayist and author of travel books.
His first literary work of importance was a film script about the Libro de buen amor, released in 1970. It was followed by a travel book (Por la ruta serrana del Arcipreste: Entre Hita y Segovia in 1976), a tale (Hispán e Iberia in 1981), three novels (Islaria in 1980, La puerta de marfil in 1988 and Las piedras del Guira in 1993), and an essay (Los sagrados misterios de la historia in 1993).
In addition to contributing to periodicals and giving courses on the Quixote, the Libro de buen amor and In Search of Lost Time, he has coordinated the collective work Rutas literarias de España.
Biographical sketch
Rubén Caba completed his secondary education (Bachillerato) at the School of the Alliance Française of Valencia, earned degrees in Law and in Philosophy and Letters from the Complutense University of Madrid, and obtained a diploma in Sociology from the Institute of Political Studies of Madrid.
From his first book, a collection of poems, to his most recent ones (the novel Los Siderales and the travel book Cabeza de Vaca: Tras las huellas del Ulises del Nuevo Mundo), his work also includes other novels, tales, travel books, essays and journalistic articles.
In the 1970s, after walking the mountain route of the Archpriest of Hita, he maintained (contrary to what specialists in Medieval Literature such as Manuel Criado de Val asserted) that the episodes of stanzas 950 to 1,048 of the Libro de Buen Amor take place along a real round trip between Hita and Segovia, with a unified route and direction of travel. He set this out in a book, whose first edition dates from 1976, which provides evidence in favor of the travel thesis defended by some commentators on the text such as Alfonso Reyes and Félix Lecoy. This view was shared by the historian and essayist José Luis Abellán: "(Rubén Caba) has tried to verify them (stanzas 950 to 1,048) in practice with complete success, thus undoing some of the apparent contradictions of the text".[1] During those years, in a series of articles published in the Madrid newspaper Informaciones (the last one: "Juan Ruiz y sus parodias", 23,IX,1976), Caba argued that it was impossible for Juan Ruiz to have parodied Cardinal Don Gil de Albornoz under the figure of the Archpriest, as Criado de Val asserted in his Historia de Hita y su Arcipreste (Madrid, Editora Nacional, 1976).
During the 1980s Rubén Caba combined the writing of his books with teaching monographic courses on El Quijote, the Libro de buen amor and En busca del tiempo perdido. He has also taken part in numerous colloquia and lectures on literary topics.
Characteristics of his work
Style
Santos Sanz Villanueva has written about Salida con Juan Ruiz a probar la sierra, the title of the first edition of Por la ruta serrana del Arcipreste: "Two merits stand out among others: the richness and expressiveness of its vocabulary, and the frequency with which irony tinges a narrative full of elegant humor".[2] And his essay Los sagrados misterios de la literatura has been described by Fernando Sánchez Dragó as "a small masterpiece".[3]
Themes
His works carry an underlying critique of those who, with no merit other than their ambition to dominate others, climb onto any incarnation of power, and not only political power. Even some writers (as he has set out in his essay Los sagrados misterios de la literatura), so skilled at firing broadsides at the rest of the human archipelago, wield cultural taboos to fortify their islet and surround the craft of writing with a halo of sanctimonious impostures.
Awards
- Arcipreste de Hita Prize (1982), for his poem Carta en cuaderna vía.
- América Hispana Prize (1992), for Las piedras del Guairá, a historical novel about the first founding of Buenos Aires by Pedro de Mendoza in 1536.
- Premios del Tren (2004), for the tale El amigo viajero de Beppo Abdul Wahab.
- Premios del Tren (2005), for the tale El rigor de las desdichas.
Works
- Film script: Libro de buen amor. Film released in 1970 in Madrid
- Political opinion survey: 389 Escritores españoles opinan. Bilbao: La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca, 1971
- Poetry collections: Ímpetu, pasión y fuga. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1972.
- Carta en cuaderna vía. "Arcipreste de Hita" Prize, 1982. Jaén: Alcalá la Real, 1982
- Tales: El amigo viajero de Beppo Abdul Wahab. Madrid: Premios del Tren, Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles, 2004.
- El rigor de las desdichas. Madrid: Premios del tren, Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles, 2005
- Travel books: Salida con Juan Ruiz a probar la sierra. Madrid: Helios, 1976.
- Por la ruta serrana del Arcipreste. (2nd corrected edition of Salida con Juan Ruiz...). Madrid: Cenit, 1977.
- 3rd ed. Madrid: Libertarias-Phodhufi, 1995
- And 4th corrected and expanded ed., includes photos of the journey. Madrid: Editorial Gadir, 2018. ISBN 9788494761980
- Rutas literarias de España (coord. and co-author). Madrid: Aguilar, 1990
- Literary routes of Spain. Madrid, Aguilar, 1990
- Cabeza de Vaca: Tras las huellas del Ulises del Nuevo Mundo. Córdoba: Almuzara, 2021. ISBN 9788418346262
- Essays: Naufragios. Letras Hispánicas collection. Critical edition by Eloísa Gómez-Lucena and Rubén Caba. Madrid: Cátedra, 2018. ISBN 978-84-376-3922-2
- Los sagrados misterios de la literatura. Madrid: Libertarias-Phodhufi, 1993
- La odisea de Cabeza de Vaca (co-author). Barcelona and Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2008. (A historical essay that clarifies and comments on the text of Naufragios as well as establishing the itinerary of Cabeza de Vaca through the southern United States and northern Mexico.)
- Topicario. Manual del perfecto trepador. Seville: Renacimiento, 2010
- Novels: Islario. Madrid: Nuevo Sendero, 1980
- Hispán e Iberia. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1981. 6th ed. 1990
- La puerta de marfil. Madrid: Orígenes, 1988
- Las piedras del Guairá. (1st founding of Buenos Aires). "América Hispana" Prize, 1992. Diputación de Guadalajara, 1993.
- 2nd edition, Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996
- Días de gloria. Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2000
- Los Siderales. Seville: Renacimiento, 2017
Bibliography
- Diccionario de literatura española e hispanoamericana. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1993
- Diccionario de escritores en lengua castellana. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 2004
References
External links
- Cabeza de Vaca. Tras las huellas del Ulises del Nuevo Mundo on Amazon
- Interview about the essay on Cabeza de Vaca (in Spanish)
- Summary of the essay on Cabeza de Vaca (in Spanish)
- Por la ruta serrana del Arcipreste: Entre Hita y Segovia on Amazon
- Review of the novel about adventures on the Trans-Siberian, Días de gloria (in Spanish)
