Manuel Altolaguirre Bolín (29 June 1905 – 26 July 1959) was aSpanishpoet, an editor, publisher, and printer of poetry, and a member of theGeneration of '27.
Born in the Andalusian city ofMálaga in 1905, Altolaguirre's collaborative poets includedEmilio Prados,Vicente Aleixandre, andFederico García Lorca. After completing law studies inGranada, Altolaguirre founded the magazineAmbos and returned to Málaga to start the printing shop Imprenta Sur ('Southern Press'), where he drew together many of his friends, publishing most of their early verse.
In 1926 Altolaguirre published his first collection,Las islas invitadas y otros poemas, twenty-four mostly descriptive, soul-searching poems about love, nature, solitude, and death. That same year, he co-founded withEmilio Prados the literary periodicalLitorral, whose 1927 triple issue commemorated the three hundredth anniversary of the death ofLuis de Góngora, a poet greatly admired by theGeneration of '27.
In his second collection,Ejemplo, the poet seemed to want to mould himself into the universe in search of harmony, revealing the influence ofJuan Ramón Jiménez. In 1930 he began another literary magazine,Poesía, which he also printed and bound, and to which he contributed poems of love and solitude.
After a two-year stay toParis with his portable printing press, Altolaguirre lived inMadrid, where he producedSoledades juntas, including love poems perhaps inspired by his fellow poetConcha Méndez, whom he married in 1932.
With Méndez, Altolaguirre founded the publicationsHéroe (for whichJuan Ramón Jiménez contributed lyrical character portraits of Spanish heroes) and1616 (inEngland, to strengthen the literary relations between Spain and England through publication of poems in the original as well as in translation). In1616 (the name commemorates the year of the deaths ofMiguel de Cervantes andWilliam Shakespeare), he published poems byFederico García Lorca,Luis Cernuda,Jorge Guillén,Pablo Neruda, and Moreno Villa, among others. He wrote a biography ofGarcilaso de la Vega, edited theAntología de la poeśia romántica española, and translatedVictor Hugo and other writers.
Published in 1936, his poetry collection,La lenta libertad, included many poems from previous volumes, the newer poems dealing with evil and social injustice.
In 1936, when theSpanish Civil War broke out, Altolaguirre became a member of theAlliance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals and became the director of "La Barraca", a classictheater troupe that took Spanish theater to the countryside, after its leaderFederico García Lorca was killed. Altolaguirre enlisted with the Republican forces and involved himself in printing projects. He printedPablo Neruda’sEspaña en el corazón (Spain in the Heart, 1938) on paper manufactured from oldflags and uniforms of the enemy, the wet paper then hung with clothes-pins to dry.
In 1939, Altolaguirre suffered an emotional collapse. Later that year, he and his family traveled toMexico City, stopping off inCuba for five years. In Cuba he founded more magazines,Atentamente and LaVerónica, and completedNube temporal, poems of war and human suffering.
He completedNuevos poemas de las islas invitadas in 1946, poems revealing his increasing interest in mysticism, and in 1949, after leaving his wife for María Luisa Gómez-Mena y Vivanco (whom he later married), he publishedFin de un amor, the poet seemingly torn between spiritual love inspired by Concha and the passion he felt for María Luisa.
For the last years of his life, he was involved with the Mexican film industry, writing scripts, producing, and directing. In 1959, Altolaguirre returned to Spain to presentEl Cantar de los cantares at theSan Sebastián Film Festival. On 23 July, after the festival, he had a car accident on his way to Madrid and died three days later inBurgos.
Altolaguirre also wrote a propaganda playEl triunfo de las germanías ("The Triumph of the Brotherhood of the Guilds") withJosé Bergamín in 1937, and screenplays for six motion pictures from 1951-1959. He edited and was responsible for publishingAntología de la poesía romántica española ("Anthology of Spanish Romantic Poetry") in 1933,Poemas escogidos de Federico Garćia Lorca in 1939,Presente de las lírica mexicana in 1946, andGerardo Diego'sPoemas in 1948.
