Felipe Alfau
Felipe Alfau was a Spanish American writer born in Barcelona in 1902, who gained recognition later in life as a postmodernist author. He emigrated to New York with his family in 1916 and spent years working various jobs, including as a music critic. Alfau's literary journey began with his novel *Locos*, written in 1928 but published much later, in 1936, after being rediscovered in 1987. The book, subtitled *A Comedy of Gestures*, showcases a self-aware narrative style reminiscent of earlier Spanish literature, particularly the works of Cervantes, blending humor with a critique of fictive realism.
His second novel, *Chromos*, was published in 1990 and explored themes of identity among Spanish Americans in 1930s New York. This work, like *Locos*, featured a complex structure where stories intertwined, challenging conventional narrative forms. Alfau’s later work included *Sentimental Songs*, published in Spanish in 1992. His unique perspective on the struggles of maintaining a European identity within American culture continues to resonate, marking him as a significant voice in the exploration of cultural integration and literary innovation.
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Subject Terms
Felipe Alfau
Writer
- Born: August 24, 1902
- Birthplace: Barcelona, Spain
- Died: February 18, 1999
- Place of death: New York
Biography
Felipe Alfau was a Spanish American who was almost entirely unknown as a writer until his work was rediscovered when he was an elderly man. He never intended to be a writer, although he is now seen as a postmodernist before his time, wrestling with the problems of maintaining a European identity in an American culture.
He was born in 1902 in Barcelona, Spain. His father, Antonio, was a journalist and lawyer who emigrated with his wife, Evgenia, and son to New York in 1916. Alfau attended Columbia University for one year, 1920-1921, before taking on a number of small jobs, including being a music critic for a Spanish daily, La Prensa, from 1923 to 1926. In 1927, he married Estelle Goodman, by whom he had one daughter, Chiquita. He and his wife were divorced in 1929. He later remarried in 1946, to Rosemary Clark, who predeceased him. For much of his life, he lived on Long Island.
Alfau claimed to have written his first novel, Locos, in 1928, to ward off his debtors. However, soon after its completion, he secured a job as translator with the Morgan Bank of New York, a post he held until 1964, and so he delayed the publication of the book. In the meantime, he compiled a selection for children called Old Tales from Spain, which was published in 1929. He finally found a publisher, Farrar and Rinehart, which in 1936 offered to publish a limited edition of Locos. Although it received several good reviews, it was soon forgotten.
Subtitled A Comedy of Gestures, the novel is set in Madrid. The author is self-consciously the writer of the novel, detailing how he visited the Café de los Locos in order to find characters for his proposed novel. One of the characters, Gaston, actually takes over the writing of the novel at one point, until the writer has to step in to rescue him from an unresolvable predicament. Another character willingly accepts punishment for a crime he did not commit so that he does not have to deny a theory of criminality he has been propounding.
The book is thus a self-regarding piece of fiction, but in a Spanish tradition that goes back to Don Quixote. Mockery, self-mockery, and bizarre humor are all part of a wider subversion of fictive realism. The book was rediscovered by accident when an editor from Dalkey Archives found a copy in a secondhand bookstore in 1987. He found the book so interesting that he set out to discover its author, persuading him to revise and reissue the book. It became instantly recognized as a precursor of postmodernist praxis.
Alfau showed Dalkey a second novel he had written in 1948, Chromos, which they published in 1990. This is set in New York in the 1930’s, around a group of Spanish Americans trying to balance identity and integration, tradition and progress. This time, Alfau dreams of the book he is going to write, which is not the sort of book he would normally write, but it is the dream-book that gets written. Again, in a postmodern way, the notion of intentionality is undermined. Stories are also embedded within stories, as in the work of Italo Calvino. As a final gesture, Alfau also had published in Spanish Sentimental Songs in 1992.