Español
What to see in Fuerteventura ?
Josefina Plá: from the island of Lobos to the world
Oct
If being born on the small islet of Lobos can be considered to be born in Fuerteventura, then Josefina Plá is a majorera.
This illustrious writer, she was not only the guarantor of Castilian letters in Latin America, but she also cultivated other disciplines. She was in the broadest sense: an artist.
Josefina Plá was the daughter of a lighthouse keeper. Leopoldo, her father, had to move with his family wherever he was required, for a period that was sometimes indeterminate.
In the spring of 1903 Leopoldo Plá was assigned, forcibly, to the Martiño lighthouse, on the islet of Lobos.
This is how the press of the time picked up the appointment of the person who was to keep the light signal of the Islote de Lobos.
Diario de Tenerife – June 10, 1903
The lighthouse keeper of the third class, Mr. Leopoldo Plá Botella, has been assigned to the Martiño lighthouse in Fuerteventura.
This transfer was more of a punishment. He was assigned one of the worst destination he could have at that time. This was motivated by having made illegal efforts in exchange for a better destination.
In November 1903, five months after the Plá – Guerra family arrived at the islet of Lobos, Josefina was born. She was baptized with the name of María Josefa Teodora. The baptism took place in the small church of Femés, on the neighboring island of Lanzarote. Forty camels with their respective camel drivers, formed a procession that accompanied the little girl to the church.
Josefina spent the first five years of her life on the island of Lobos. Running around with total freedom, the way of life that the small islet provided them, and being able to observe her nature marked her, in a significant way, for her entire life. Although she did not return to this piece of land halfway between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, Lobos was always in her heart.
I never forgot that I was from the Canary Islands, and specifically, a Majorera. But I could never remember what they were like – what they are like – these Canaries with whose clay my early years were kneaded.
(…) I had a relatively happy childhood. I say relatively because I had other children to play with. There were rocks everywhere and a few stunted plants. Sometimes the landscape was bleak and depressing. The only thing that brought me out of my melancholic state were the seagulls. I spent hours and hours studying their flights and behaviors.
I believe that that life in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the unfathomable sea and the distant horizon, tempered my spirit for my future life.
In July 1908 the Plá family returned to the mainland on the Hespérides ship.
In Villajoyosa, Alicante, she spent her adolescence. Being in her twenties she met her great love: the Paraguayan artist Andrés Campos Cervera, whose artistic pseudonym was Julián de la Herrería. He was, at that time, about 36 years old.
It only took them a week of courtship, in Alicante, to realize that they were made for each other. The Paraguayan artist had to go to his country, but the long-distance courtship continued to live for several years.
In January 1927 Josefina married, by proxy, the ceramic artist Julián de la Herrería. The wedding was held twice the same day. She in Almería, he in the city of Asunción. On January 6, she, Josefina, left by boat for the Paraguayan capital.
Shortly after arriving in his new country, he founded the first radio station in Paraguay. A little later he began his career in the world of letters, first as a trench journalist, later writing a large number of articles, poetry, theater, journalism, and narrative. He also excelled as a potter.
Her enormous activity was marked with all kinds of distinctions: honorary member of the Argentine Society of Writers, member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Paraguayan Woman of the Year (1977) or member of the Paraguayan Academy of the Language. In addition, she was distinguished with the Bicentennial Medal of the United States (1976), the Gold Medal of Fine Arts of Spain (1995), an honorary doctorate from the University of Asunción (1981) and the appointment of Maid of Honor from the Order of Isabel la Católica (1977). She was also several times nominated for the Cervantes Prize.
Despite being, Josefina Plá, one of the most influential literary and artistic references in Latin America, in Spain and more specifically in the Canary Islands, was intentionally forgotten until the mid-1980s of the last century. We could say that she was ignored and banned literary for having participated in the Spanish Civil War, on the Republican side.
Josefina Plá passed away in January 1999.
The islet of Lobos has become, in a certain way, an island in homage to our illustrious writer who, one day, left to discover the world.
A few meters from the Lobos dock, a bust of the poet contemplating the impetuous sea, reminds us that we are stepping on her native land. Also her home: the Martiño lighthouse, is her place of homage. Two bronze plaques: one on the façade of the lighthouse, and the other facing the sea, with a bas-relief of a seagull and his texts, make us forget, for a moment, the overwhelming landscape of the islet of Lobos, and take part in the poetry by Josefina Plá.
Fuerteventura01
