Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters)

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Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters) 2025

The Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters) is a celebration to pay tribute to people who stood out for their literary contribution in the Galician language. Since 1963, every May 17th the Real Academia Gallega dedicates this celebration to a different personality.

Why is the Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters) celebrated every May 17th?

The date of celebration was chosen to pay tribute to the publication of the first copy of the work Cantares Gallegos, by Rosalía de Castro in 1863. This date marks the beginning of the ‘Rexurdimento’, the Galician cultural renaissance.

Day of Galician Letters 2025. Tribute to popular oral poetry, ‘Cantareiras’.

2025 – Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters)

In 2025 the Real Academia Galega agreed to pay tribute to oral folk poetry, ‘cantareiras’. With this gesture, the aim is to recognise the importance of popular oral poetry, medieval poetry that has always accompanied Galician society.

Personified in Adolfina and Rosa Casás Rama, from Cerceda, Eva Castiñeira Santos, from Muxía, and Manuela Lema, Teresa García Prieto and Prudencia and Asunción Garrido Ameixenda, members of the Pandeireteiras de Mens (Malpica).

Tributes on the Día das Letras Galegas in recent editions

2024 – Tribute to Luisa Villalta

In 2024 the Real Academia Galega pays tribute to Luisa Villalta (La Coruña 1957 – 2004), Galician writer and teacher. She holds a degree in Hispanic and Galician-Portuguese Philology from the University of Santiago de Compostela and is a violinist with the Santiago Orchestra and the Xove Symphony Orchestra of Galicia.

Committed to the Galician language, she has participated in a large number of plays, narrative and poetry works, including: Música reservada, Ruido, Teoría de Xogos, Pensar é escuro, among others.

2023 – Tribute to Francisco Fernández del Riego

In 2023 the RAG (Real Academia Galega) paid tribute to the intellectual Francisco Fernández del Riego (Vilanova de Lourenzá, Lugo, 1913 – Vigo, Pontevedra, 2010). Writer, essayist, intellectual and politician, also remembered as founder of Editorial Galaxia and president of the Real Academia Galega between 1997 and 2001. Francisco Fernández del Riego belonged to the generation of intellectuals that emerged around the Nós group.

His books include essays such as ‘Historia de la literatura gallega’ (History of Galician literature), ‘Galicia en el espejo’ (Galicia in the mirror) and ‘La generación Galaxia’ (The Galaxia generation).

2022 – Tribute to Florencio Delgado Gurriarán

Florencio Delgado Gurriarán (Córgomo-Villamartín de Valdeorras, Ourense, 27 August 1903 – California, USA, 14 May 1987) was honoured on the Día das Letras Galegas 2022. Florencio Delgado was a writer in the Galician language, with a degree in law, who participated as Secretary of Propaganda in the Partido Galeguista. At the end of the civil war, he migrated to Mexico, where he settled for the rest of his life.

In his early years he published poetry in Galician in the Galician newspaper A Nosa Terra, in the Heraldo de Galicia and in the magazine Nós, in a section entitled ‘Bebedeira’. After migrating to Mexico he collaborated with different Galician publishing houses and edited the magazine Saudade and was a fervent promoter of Galician culture in Mexico.

Other publications by Florencio Delgado Gurriarán:

• Galicia Infinda (1963)
• Cantaneras (1981)
• O soño dun guieiro (1986)

2021 – Tribute to Xela Arias

Xela Arias (Lugo, 4 March 1962 – Vigo, 1 November 2003). Writer, poet and translator who was later honoured in 2021 to the Letras Galegas after being proposed 3 times for this tribute.

AltaLingua would like to highlight her work as a translator, for which she received several awards:

• From the Sociedade da Língua Portuguesa for Amor de perdición by Camilo Castelo Branco (1986).
• The Ramón Cabanillas for O derradeiro dos mohicanos by James Fenimore Cooper (1993)
• The Plácido Castro for O Spleen de París by Baudelaire (2004)

In addition, the Real Academia Galega premiered a 6-episode documentary series dedicated to the life and work of the writer, Xela Arias. A palabra esgazada, accompanied by the author’s own words. 2021 was characterised by the fact that the Real Academia Galega opted for an audiovisual format with a series of short audiovisual pieces entitled Xela Arias. Onde canta a poeta.

The main event of the Day of Galician Letters 2021 was held in Vigo, the city where Xela Arias lived and worked, with the participation of Marilar Aleixandre, Ana Romaní and Manuel Rivas, and musical performances by Mónica de Nut, Pablo Carrera and Fernando Abreu, who was preparing a poetic-musical show with Xela Arias before he passed away.

In addition, in Santiago de Compostela, the exhibition Xela Arias. Asinamos ser libres at the Ánxel Casal Library.

On the website of the Consello da Cultura you can listen to recordings of poems recited by the author herself, as well as an interview and other resources.

2020 – Tribute to Ricardo Carvalho Calero

Ricardo Carvalho Calero (Ferrol, 1910- Santiago de Compostela, 1990). A Galician philologist and writer, he graduated in Law and in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Santiago de Compostela, was also a full member of the Royal Galician Academy and the first professor of Galician Linguistics and Literature at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

In 2020, due to the state of health alarm, the celebration was postponed for the first time in history to 31 October, the day after the 110th anniversary of the birth of the honoree, Ricardo Carvalho Calero.

2019 – Tribute to Antonio Fraguas Fraguas

Antonio Fraguas Fraguas (Cotobad, 1905 – Santiago de Compostela, 1999). He studied Philosophy and Arts at the University of Santiago de Compostela and was a full member of the Galician Royal Academy. He was a Spanish writer, historian, anthropologist and ethnographer with a Galician ideology.

2018 – Tribute to María Victoria Moreno Márquez

María Victoria Moreno Márquez (Cáceres, 1939 – Pontevedra, 2005). She was an editor, translator and writer of children’s and young people’s literature in the Galician language and a secondary school teacher in various institutes in Galicia. She is the fourth woman in history to be honoured on the Día das Letras Gallegas.

2017 – Tribute to Carlos Casares

Carlos Casares Mouriño (Orense, 1941-Vigo, 2002) was a Galician writer, editor, translator and professor, known for works such as Vento ferido (1967), Cambio en tres (1969), Xoguetes para un tempo prohibido (1975), Os mortos daquel verán (1987), Un país de palabras (1999), among others.

He was also the translator into Galician of works such as The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

If you would like more information about Carlos Casares, you can consult his biography on the Fundación Carlos Casares website.

Outstanding personalities honoured on the Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters)

1963 – Rosalía de Castro. First person to be honoured on the Día das Letras Galegas (Day of Galician Letters).

Rosalía de Castro is the first person to receive this tribute. The Day of the Galician Letters is celebrated on the day of the publication of her book ‘Cantares Gallegos’ on May 17th 1863, in Vigo. This was the first major book printed entirely in Galician. It was a work that highlighted the value of the Galician language and culture, fighting against the prejudices of the time for being a woman and writing in Galician. Rosalía de Castro marks a change in a feminist and cultural claim in Galicia with the beginning of a new cultural trend, the ‘Rexurdimento’.

List of personalities honoured on the Día das Letras Galegas:

• • 1963 – Rosalía de Castro
  • 1964 – Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao
  • 1965 – Eduardo Pondal
  • 1966 – Francisco Añón
  • 1967 – Manuel Curros Enríquez
  • 1968 – Florentino López Cuevillas
  • 1969 – Antonio Noriega Varela
  • 1970 – Marcial Valladares Núñez
  • 1971 – Gonzalo López Abente
  • 1972 – Valentín Lamas Carvajal
  • 1973 – Manuel Lago González
  • 1974 – Xoán Vicente Viqueira
  • 1975 – Xoán Manuel Pintos Villar
  • 1976 – Ramón Cabanillas
  • 1977 – Antón Villar Ponte
  • 1978 – Antonio López Ferreiro
  • 1979 – Manuel Antonio
  • 1980 – Alfonso X el Sabio
  • 1981 – Vicente Risco
  • 1982 – Luis Amado Carballo
  • 1983 – Manuel Leiras Pulpeiro
  • 1984 – Armando Cotarelo Valledor
  • 1985 – Antón Losada Diéguez
  • 1986 – Aquilino Iglesia Alvariño
  • 1987 – Francisca Herrera Garrido
  • 1988 – Ramón Otero Pedrayo
  • 1989 – Celso Emilio Ferreiro
  • 1990 – Luis Pimentel
  • 1991 – Álvaro Cunqueiro
  • 1992 – Fermín Bouza Brey
  • 1993 – Eduardo Blanco Amor
  • 1994 – Luis Seoane
  • 1995 – Rafael Dieste
  • 1996 – Xesús Ignacio Ferro Couselo
  • 1997 – Ánxel Fole
  • 1998 – Xoán de Cangas, Martín Códax y Mendinho
  • 1999 – Roberto Blanco Torres
  • 2000 – Manuel Murguía
  • 2001 – Eladio Rodríguez
  • 2002 – Fray Martín Sarmiento
  • 2003 – Antón Avilés de Taramancos
  • 2004 – Xaquín Lorenzo, Xocas
  • 2005 – Lorenzo Varela
  • 2006 – Manuel Lugrís Freire
  • 2007 – María Mariño
  • 2008 – Xosé María Álvarez Blázquez
  • 2009 – Ramón Piñeiro López
  • 2010 – Uxío Novoneyra
  • 2011 – Lois Pereiro
  • 2012 – Valentín Paz Andrade
  • 2013 – Roberto Vidal Bolaño
  • 2014 – Xosé María Díaz Castro
  • 2015 – Xosé Filgueira Valverde
  • 2016 – Manuel María
  • 2017 – Carlos Casares
  • 2018 – María Victoria Moreno Márquez
  • 2019 – Antonio Fraguas Fraguas
  • 2020 – Ricardo Carvalho Calero
  • 2021 – Xela Arias
  • 2022 – Florencio Delgado Gurriarán
  • 2023 – Francisco Fernández del Riego
  • 2024 – Luísa Villalta Gómez
  • 2025 – to popular oral poetry, “Cantareiras”.

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