Writer, bullfigther, dramatist
and Aragonese of the three provinces.
Alfonso Zapater was born in Albalate
of the Archbishop (Teruel), the 18 of July of 1932, although
with hardly eight months old, he was taken to Urrea de Gaén,
near Martín river, where his father worked in a rented
flour mill. His father was also an outstanding dancer (he created the
jota of Albalate), influencing remarkably in the tastes
of his son. The childhood of Alfonso, happened then between Urrea
and Albalate, attending classes of preschooler in the Convent
of Santa Ana, until the Spanish Civil War was declared.
Being very young, he was entertained
making poetries,… and writing a notebook of ideas with which he constructed
a sacramental auto. He began to write verses when 9 years old in Mas
de las Matas town, where his father, returned of the war, acquired
the mill of Aguaviva. He was a great reader in his childhood
also; when 12 years old he himself took control of the Classics Collection,
of Barcelona, requesting the books to the publishing house.
Living in Urrea, and he was 15
ó16 years, Alfonso contracted a pneumonia, of which was cured
with first penicillin that was injected in this town and that his father
brought from Zaragoza. By those days (August of 1947) passed
away Manolete and to Alfonso desire came to him from “replacing”
to the matador; and to top it all, the doctor who treated him, obtained
a book to him of bulls. When 17 years old, Alfonso trained with
an industralist of Albalate in a hostelry of Tudela. Who
saw to fight him, assures that the figure and seriousness remembered
Manolete, because he was very thin and high. A suit of lights
was bought and made debut like novillero (apprentice bullfighter)
in Gallur when he was 17 years. The first time that he fights
using young bulls was in Orduña (Biscay). Soon he would do it
in Graus (Huesca), Albalate, Híjar, and
more Aragonese places until turning 19 years old. It was known him like
the bullfigther-poet.
Alfonso had a good relation with the Dominguín
family; he used to go with Carmen Dominguín to the cinema. His
manager took him by the bullrings of Valladolid, Castellón, Barcelona,
Badajoz, Cáceres,… but to Alfonso the desire of being Manolete
went passed him and he finished bullfighting, living in Madrid
for doing the military service (3 years in the Ministry of the Army)
and to begin to worry about his other literary passion.
Its first contact with the media arises
in “Pueblo”, with Emilio Romero. He got to have several
programs in Radio SEU. In Madrid he is going to have occasion
to form in depth and to develop the facets of the periodism that he
liked more, working without rest.
The aspirations to be like dramatist,
also were made and Alfonso Zapater releases his first works:
“Noche de pesadilla”, in the Maria Cristina, and “La Chabola”,
in the Lara. In Madrid he will know the actress Pilar
Delgado, with whom he will marry and will have five children.
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Familiar reasons bring him to Zaragoza,
collaborating in Radio Juventud, with programs like "Café,
copa y puro" (“Coffee, glass and pure”), social gatherings and abundant
scripts. He also gets to be collaborating from the daily “Amanecer”
and corresponsal of “Europa Press”. Soon he will enter the Aragonese
writing of the periodic “Pueblo” (leaving “Amanecer”);
it is here where he begins to be known. Like novelist, he was finalist
of the Nadal Prize in 1982, with “El accidente” and obtained
the literary prizes San Jorge, City of Jaca and City of
Barbastro.
In 1966, he gets up himself to “Heraldo”,
with a daily page (“Zaragoza al día”) in which reflects
his ability to make chronicle, interview, news article and opinion.
The inexhaustible ability to work of Alfonso Zapater, at the
same time allows him to get to make great works, as they attest “Aragón
Pueblo a Pueblo” - that is an in-depth route by the geography of Aragón-,
or the monumental work “Historia de la Jota Aragonesa“.
The writer has a myocardium infarct Monday
28 of Mayo 2007 when he went by his own foot to the Provincial Hospital
of Saragossa. It was unconscious in the street. The day 30 of May 2007,
to the 16 hours, Alfonso Zapater passed away -being 74 years
old- in the ICU of the first plant of that hospital, from where his
corpse would be taken to the morgue, later to be buried in the Cemetery
of Torrero of Zaragoza.
"Aragón Pueblo a Pueblo",
byAlfonso Zapater, from almost the beginnings of this page (“Huesca
Portal Web”), has been referring and guides for the publication
of the monthly articles that in http://www.altoaragon.org
are published and which later they are compiled in http://articulos.altoaragon.org.
.
The physical disappearance of this versatile
and excellent journalist, is going to condition an almost permanent
tribute to his works in this section, from which modestly it is tried
to promote the province of Huesca, to the style that D. Alfonso
Zapater knew to do like anybody. Go for him my sincere gratefulness
and greater consideration.
Rest peacefully.
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