R.I.P. Agustín Fernández Paz, 69, in July 2016 ("Galicia's answer to H. P. Lovecraft" & HCAA nominee)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Not exactly SF, but anyway...

He was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2012.

One of his more popular novels is the 1995 Winter Letters. See below.

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj32Z63gM3RAhXJOyYKHRh2AXsQPAgD#hl=en&q=+Agust%C3%ADn+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Paz+69
(obits - they can be translated)

http://agustinfernandezpaz.gal/en/
(his site, in English - to read the book synopses, click on Publications and then on individual books)

http://agustinfernandezpaz.gal/en/about-the-writter/

Excerpt:

"Agustín Fernández Paz (Vilalba, 1947-Vigo, 2016) is one of the best known and most valued writers in the field of children’s and young adults’ literature in Galicia and the rest of Spain. He is the author of more than fifty titles mainly aimed at young and adolescent readers. His books, written in Galician, are regularly translated into the other Spanish languages: Castilian, Catalan and Basque. Several titles have also been translated into Portugese, Korean, English, Italian, Bulgarian, Chinese, French and Arabic.

"As well as being an industrial machinery inspector, Agustín Fernández Paz was a teacher and has a degree in educational sciences. He worked as a teacher for more than thirty years, in primary and secondary education. Alongside his teaching career, he also developed a range of theoretical and informative activities, centred on themes such as the introduction of communication media in the classroom, reading promotion, the promotion of the Galician language in a bilingual context or the teaching of the language..."

http://www.nationalia.info/new/10828/galician-writer-who-made-children-worldwide-dream-dies-at-69
(short notice, in English)

"...Fernández Paz's more than 50 books can be read in Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Asturian, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Korean, Chinese, Italian, English, Bulgarian, Slovenian and Breton. He is thus one of the most translated Galician writers..."

http://www.mywhitepaper.me/2016/07/24/agustin-fernandez-paz-dies/
(another short notice)


http://palabrasdamanaocorazon.blogspot.com/2016/07/letters-in-books-cartas-de-inverno.html

" 'The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,' writes H. P. Lovecraft at the start of his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature. In real life, the author Agustín Fernández Paz, Galicia’s answer to H. P. Lovecraft, is reading the newspaper and comes across a classified ad for a haunted house. He imagines what would happen if someone answered that ad. Then what would happen if they went to see the house and liked it. Then what would happen if they had enough money and decided to buy it. And finally what would happen if they went to live there and discovered that the house was really haunted. This is the plot of Winter Letters (1995), one of the best-selling Galician novels of all time. The house will bring to mind, for older readers, the Bates’ home in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho. Inside the house is a book of prints that may remind younger readers of Tom Riddle’s diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. However this may be, the reader is sure to be drawn in by the force and power of the narrative, which is as smooth and sinuous as the sirens’ song heard by Ulysses from the sanctuary of the mast of his ship."


http://www.fashioniconz.com/die-galician-writer-agustin-fernandez-paz

"...The awards will come from everywhere: he was nominated four times the Astrid Lindgren Memorial and in 2015 the Association of Writers in Lingua Galega (AELG) was proposed for the Nobel Prize for Literature..."

https://www.google.com/search?q=Agust%C3%ADn+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Paz&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=841&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0-P_Rhc3RAhWINiYKHVl3As4Q_AUIBygC#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=Agust%C3%ADn+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Paz+libros
(book covers)

https://www.google.com/search?q=Agust%C3%ADn+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Paz+books&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=841&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilzeLyhc3RAhUESiYKHTeSCx0Q_AUIBygC
(more covers)

http://www.ibby.org/1202.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=151&cHash=a40e4ea77f0f080bc0aa68ad98344e67

Excerpt:

"His books tell stories of love, loss, indifference and hope, sometimes realistically sometimes as fantasies. Many of his stories include elements of Spain’s turbulent history through fascism and war."

Winter Letters, Black Air, and Corridors of Shadow (all in English) are all at the young-adult level.

From his site:

Black Air (2000):

"There are two narrators in this story: the young and brilliant psychiatrist, who is overwhelmed by events which surpass his scientific aptitudes, who tells us about a patient, a young woman called Laura, who expresses herself by means of texts in which she recalls how she ended up in a state of imbalance. This part of the novel takes place in A Terra Cha (Lugo) where Laura’s presence sets off a series of dramatic events. A very original children’s novel of mystery and horror in the realm of Galician literature. It is full of references to creators not only from Galicia but also from the world of international literature (Joseph Conrad, Henry James), and also of an enormous symbolic content (the theories of C. G. Jung are obvious). The underlying dilemma deals with the age-old fears which exist in any culture and their origins: neurosis or fear in the face of real dangers?"

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23600931-black-air
(more about Black Air)

Corridors of Shadow (2006):

"The Spanish Civil War and its dramatic consequences are the backdrop to this story, loaded with interesting nuances. In the Soutelo country manor, when some reforms are being carried out, a skeleton is discovered behind a wall: it is a man, more than fifty years old, with a bullet hole in the head. Clara Soutelo is the narrator of the events which she experienced during the summer when she was sixteen years old. Who is the dead man? Who killed him? The complex investigation will lead her to dig into her family’s past and also to reach out to love for the first time. With touches resembling a thriller, the work recreates the entire investigation process, providing us with moments of great tension. It also deals with the character’s awareness, when she is forced to choose her own path in life, only supported by her uncle Carlos."

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/galicia/fernandezpaza2.htm
(review of Winter Letters)

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/galicia/fernandezpaza.htm
(review of Black Air)

"These are apparently nominally 'YA' horror novels, but differ from most US/UK YA fiction in that the characters are adult."

http://smallstations.com/publications/itemlist/tag/Agust%C3%ADn%20Fern%C3%A1ndez%20Paz
(a few more reviews)

http://agustinfernandezpaz.gal/en/libros/o-unico-que-queda-e-o-amor-the-only-thing-left-is-love/
(I think this YA novel is due to be translated into English)

https://www.google.com/search?q=Agust%C3%ADn+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Paz+books&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=841&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM5Pbzhc3RAhVFSCYKHW2lC-QQ_AUIBygA&dpr=1#q=Agust%C3%ADn+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Paz&hl=en&tbm=vid
(videos)



Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

On Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 7:43:11 PM UTC-5, leno...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Not exactly SF, but anyway...
>
> He was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2012.

He was also nominated in 2016.