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.

      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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