Alejandro Casona

Biography

Alejandro Rodríguez Álvarez, known as Alejandro Casona (23 March 1903 – 17 September 1965) was a Spanish poet and playwright born in Besullo, Spain, a member of the Generation of '27. Casona received his bachelor's degree in Gijon and later studied at the University of Murcia. After Franco's rise in 1936, he was forced, like many Spanish intellectuals, to leave Spain. He lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina until April 1962, when he definitively returned to Spain. A teacher by profession, Casona expressed a strong educational vocation, inspired by the ideals of the Free Institution of Education, and his defense of progressive values in diverse cultural outreach projects such as Pedagogical Missions, created during the Second Spanish Republic. In this same vein, he made many adaptations of classic plays and narratives, both for adults and youth. Furthermore, in all his original creations he knew how to convey messages in a deep and clear social commitment without relinquishing his undeniable poetic inspiration. Casona went into exile following the Spanish Civil War and, after passing through Mexico, settled for a long time in Argentina. In this country he enjoyed remarkable critical and commercial success. He did not return to Spain until 1962, where he remained until his death on 17 September 1965, in Madrid. Having been one of the most recognized figures of the Spanish, Mexican and South American scene, the expatriot's return provided him with a terrible disappointment, as the main authors and theater critics at the time considered his work outdated, the product of an era definitively finished.