This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of José Albi Fita, a renowned poet strongly linked to Xàbia, where he spent much of his life. Albi, in addition to being considered the last poet of the Spanish postwar period, graduated in Law and in Philosophy and Letters, was a literary critic and translator (he signed great translations of the main poets of French surrealism), receiving the Valencian Letters Prize 2002 He even directed, together with Joan Fuster, one of the most important magazines on the Spanish scene: Verbo. Literary Notebooks. In this year full of symbolism, Xàbia wants to vindicate his figure.
To this end, this Friday, June 3, the book 'José Albi y su tiempo' will be presented, a work by Isabel Oliver González, writer, biographer, literary critic, poet and novelist, as well as president of the cultural entity Ateneo Blasco Ibanez.
The act is scheduled at 19:30 p.m. at the Duanes Library and will feature the intervention of the author of the prologue, Jaime Siles, also a prominent Valencian poet, philologist with a great relationship with Xàbia.
The book
'José Albi and his time' is, in the words of the Councilor for Culture, Quico Moragues, "a great tool and a means to spread his work, so that both his countrymen and the rest of the world and future generations are aware of the important figure he represents within poetry in the Spanish language of the second half of the XNUMXth century" .
The book intersperses the most relevant historical facts for decades with events from the author's own career, a publication with abundant textual and graphic documentation and that reflects the importance of Xàbia for the poet as a place where he lives transcendent moments and with which he keeps contact throughout his life.
Link with Xàbia
A link that has its roots in his family, the Albi, who occupied a prominent place in Xabiera society and economy since the second half of the XNUMXth century as raisin merchants and vineyard owners. Some time later, with the arrival of tourism, this family was also a participant in local development with the opening of a
campsite that had modern facilities for the time and an international outlook.
On a personal level, José Albi cultivated friendships with various people from Xàbia interested in culture, which led him to publish some books in the local press Botella -with an exquisite edition- as is the case with the collections of poems from the years 1997 to 2002. Previously, in 1992, he had already published a work dedicated to his town: “Jávea o el gozo”, with drawings by Josep Cardona, republished on the occasion of his death in 2010. Also the Javea Town Hall In 1994 he published the only collection of poems he has in Valencian: The ombrívol temps of les roses.
The complete work of Albi in the Public Library
The Public Library of Xàbia has practically all of his work. Some funds that he has recently expanded thanks to the fact that his children have donated a set of books that correspond to the first publications. From the "Anthology of Spanish Surrealism" written in 1952 together with Joan Fuster, to the remarkable doctoral thesis of 1979: Joan de Joanes and his artistic circle.
