lvaro Cunqueiro Mora (Mondoedo, December 22, 1911 Vigo, February 28, 1981[1]) was a

Galician novelist, poet, playwright, and journalist. He is the author of many works in both Galician
and Spanish, including Merln e familia ("Merlin and family"). He was a cofounder of the Galician
Writers Association. In 1991, Galician Literature Day was dedicated to him.
Life

Cunqueiro was born to Joaqun Cunqueiro Montenegro, a pharmacist, and Pepita Mora Moirn of
Mondoedo (where he was infamous for his practice of stealing coats at parties). He did his
bachillerato (secondary school) studies in the Instituto Xeral e Tcnico (General and Technical
Institute) in the city of Lugo, where he befriended the writers Evaristo Correa Caldern and nxel
Fole. He began to study in the Department of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Santiago
de Compostela in 1927, but abandoned his studies to dedicated himself to journalism, writing for
various newspapers and magazines including El Pueblo Gallego. During his time in Santiago, he
regularly attended the literary gatherings at the Caf Espaol, and his friends included Francisco
Fernndez del Riego, Domingo Garca Sabell, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, Ricardo Carballo Calero,
Carlos Maside, and Xos Eiroa. He promoted the magazines Papel de Color and Galiza, and edited
the first issue of the latter, published July 25, 1930.

He was a founding member of the Partido Galeguista (Galicianist Party).

The military uprising of July 1936 found Cunqueiro in Mondoedo, and thanks to the influence of his
conservative family, he was not subjected to reprisals, and was able to find work as a teacher in a
private school in Ortigueira from October 1936 onwards. He was the regional head of press and
propaganda for the Falange, and worked on the local Falangist publication Era Azul. Jess Suevos,
the head of the Falange in Galicia, and the director of the newspaper El Pueblo Gallego, asked him to
write for the newspaper's literary and current events sections; Cunqueiro accepted and moved to
Vigo. During his time in Vigo, he also briefly taught Portuguese in a high school.

In November 1938, Cunqueiro moved to San Sebastin and wrote for La Voz de Espaa. He was also
a subdirector for Vrtice, a publication of the National Delegation of Press and Propaganda, in which
he published "The Story of the Knight Rafael" (1939), his first fiction in Spanish. After Madrid was
occupied by the Nationalist army, Cunqueiro moved there and began to write for ABC. In 1947 he
returned to Mondoedo and began to distance himself from Franquism. In 1950 he published a book
in Galician, Dona de corpo delgado. From 1960 on, he worked as the official chronicler of
Mondoedo, and the following year moved to Vigo, where he found a fixed position as a writer for
the newspaper Faro de Vigo. In 1961, the Royal Galician Academy elected him as a member.
Between November 1964 and June 1970, Cunqueiro was the director of the Faro de Vigo and of the
Faro Deportivo.