Background

Carlos Sahagun was born on June 4, 1938, in Onil, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain. He was born during the Spanish Civil War.

Education

A graduate of Romance Philology from the University of Madrid, Carlos was a reader in Spanish at the University of Exeter.

Career

After graduating, Sahagun began his career as professor of Spanish language and literature at the University of Exeter, England. He then served at Instituto Andres Laguna, Segovia, Spain from 1965 to 1971. Afterward, he taught Spanish in Barcelona and Madrid.

Carlos Sahagun's postwar experiences are reflected in his writings, whether the poems are reminiscences or political statements. His first volume of poems was published when he was sixteen years old, opening a successful career that has been marked by prestigious literary awards.

Sahagun's first publication as an adult is the collection Profecias del Agua, a series of poems about water, a motif that recurs throughout his poetry and symbolizes freedom, purity, and the life force. The poems range from childhood reminiscences of the postwar countryside, redolent with death, to a tribute to the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez, whose voice was silenced in prison. Still a young man when the poems were written, Sahagun laments the loss of his childhood, but he retains the optimism of youth for a promising future. The next collection, Como Si Hubiera Muerto un Nino, reveals a poet who is moving away from childhood and addressing more adult concerns.

After graduation from the University of Madrid, Sahagun traveled in Europe and taught in England. From this distance he was able to view the oppression of the dictator Francisco Franco and to taste the freedom of life outside Spain. The two years following the completion of Como Si Hubiera un Nino were unproductive from a creative point of view but crucial in his political development. Dluring that period he became convinced of the need for revolution. He established a detailed and analytical definition of social poetry and a discussion of the creative process itself. These, along with his few new poems, were published in the anthology Poesia Ultima.

Sahagun’s next collection demonstrates a commitment to these parameters and a concomitant impact on his writing. The central themes of lost childhood and love are still important, but the work as a whole is much more politically oriented, and there is the stylistic innovation of the prose poem. Outside Spain, Sahagun had not only experienced personal freedom, he had also recognized the damage done by the Franco regime to his native land and its people. Poems in Estar Contigo reflect a nostalgia for his childhood home and a recognition that home as he remembers it no longer exists. They castigate the Franco dictatorship and criticize the Spanish people for allowing the tragedy to proceed while they only watched. Sahagun retains hope for a future of peace and justice, but only after the death of the regime.

The poems in Primer y Ultimo Oficio are less optimistic. Although the Franco era is finally drawing to an end, the future is uncertain. Signs of hope may be deceptive, and the long night that Spain has lived through may not disappear with the dictator's death. Some people may be able to forget the long night, but it is Sahagun's moral responsibility as a poet to preserve that past. The voice of hope fades in each new volume of work, but even this collection offers the tentative dream of a new dawn. The few new poems in the anthology Las Invisibles Redes suggest that the poet’s healing process may have begun.

Achievements

• Carlos Sahagun was an outstanding poet of the Generation of the 50s. His best known collection of poetry was “Profecías del agua,” for which he was recognized with the Adonáis Poetry Award. His works “Como si hubiera muerto un niño” and “Estar contigo” have been recognised with the Juan Boscán Poetry Award and the Hispano-American Poetry Award, respectively.

Works

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  • Poesías completas 2015
  • Siete Poetas Españoles 1959
  • Como Si Hubiera Muerto un Nino 1961
  • Las invisibles redes 1989
  • Primer y último oficio 1981

References

• Contemporary Authors
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