Jesús Delgado Valhondo

Biography

Jesús Delgado Valhondo was born in Mérida on 19 February 1909, but after the death of his father his family moved to Cáceres. When he was six he suffered an illness which left him lame. He studied teacher training and in 1934 began his career, but after the spanish civil war he was sanctioned for his affiliation to Alianza Republicana and for his work as Secretary of the Unión General de Trabajadores.

He was co-founder of the spanish literary magazine Alcántara (1945), and of the Association of Extremaduran Writers (Asociación de Escritores Extremeños), of which today he is honorary president. Through his literary work he received the recognition of artists such as Nobel prize winner Juan Ramón Jiménez who declared:

Ahora se escribe en España muy buena poesía. Aquí traigo un libro, La esquina y el viento, de Delgado Valhondo, nutrido de la mejor poesía moderna.

Now very good poetry is being written in Spain. Here I bring a book, La esquina y el viento, by Delgado Valhondo, nourished with the best of modern poetry

In 1978 he received the "Hispanidad" prize for poetry, in 1979 he became deputy mayor of Badajoz with the Unión de Centro Democrático (Union of the Democratic Centre) and in 1988 he was given the Medal of Extremadura for his human, professional and literary merits.

Since his death on 23 July 1993, several compilation books have been published and the Delgado Valhondo Foundation has been created in order to promote his work. The Public State Library in Mérida bears his name.