Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín

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Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín (Ourense, 7 September 1938) Galician writer and poet is widely considered the highest representative of contemporary Galician literature. Doctor in philology. Studied philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Romanic philology at the University of Madrid.

He teaches literature at the Instituto Santa Irene in Vigo. He also writes for the daily newspaper Faro de Vigo and directs the quarterly political critic magazine A Trabe Ouro. Ferrín is a member of the Real Academia Galega (Galician Royal Academy). And he is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Vigo.

He was proposed to the Nobel Prize in literature by the Galician Writers Association in 1999. He has been awarded with the Galician Critics Prize, Spanish Critics Prize and National Critics Prize.

[edit] Politics

Ferrín maintains an active political activist life. Supporting political and social initiatives as Redes Escarlata. He is a member of the nationalist literary group Brais Pinto.

He was a founding member of Unión do Pobo Galego (Union of the Galician People) and centered in a marxist nationalist ideology. Also member of Frente Popular Galega (Popular Galician Front) and founder of Galicia Ceibe.

[edit] Literary work

As a poet he became notorious with his first work Voce na néboa (Voice in the fog) 1957.

Antoloxía Popular (popular anthology) 1972, with the pseudonym Heriberto Bens.
Sirventés pola destrucción de Occitania (Servants for the destruction of Occitania) 1975.
Con pólvora e magnolias (With gunpowder and magnolias) 1977.
Poesía enteira de Heriberto Bens (Complete poetry of Heriberto Bens) 1980.
O fin dun canto (The end of a singing) 1982.
Erótica (Erotic) 1992.
Estirpe (Breed/Lineage) 1994.
O outro (The other one) 2002.
Contra Maquieiro (Against Maquieiro) 2005