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A trip of 16,000 kilometers of trip with Manolo

The Manuel Rodríguez López project fulfilled in 2018 several important milestones. Whereas in the previous edition we mentioned that the project was five years old, it it now that the itinerant exhibition reached this age. In August 2018 the Project arrived at the Museum of A Fonsagrada, just five years after being inaugurated in Paradela House of the Culture.

And after so long, this project does not spell, but quite the opposite: When the itinerant exhibition returned from Valladolid to Galicia in December, it reached the figure of 16,000 kilometers accumulated in trips throughout the entire Peninsula, and arriving even to the Canary Islands.

More than five years, more than 16,000 kilometers, but above all, thousands and thousands of people who, in one way or another, participated in the Project, who approached Manuel Rodríguez López, his life, his broad literary work, his love for his land, and the link established between Galicia and Catalonia.

We summarize the project status following the three fundamental lines of it.

Web

Manuel Rodríguez López web, one of the most complete websites that a Galician writer has, gathers his complete work and the most outstanding information of his existence, in four languages: Spanish, Galician, English and Catalan.

Within approximately 3 Gb of information, a complete database on the Paradela Literary Contest, and a wide collection of documents, photographs, videos, audios and press reports that reflect the intense literary and intellectual activity of Manuel Rodríguez López.


 

After six years, this website has received more than 4,000 monthly visits. That is, more than 100 people each day entered into this platform to discover or better know Manuel Rodríguez López.

Itinerant Exhibition

The Itinerant Exhibition on the life and work of Manuel Rodríguez is made up of 16 information panels, which can be seen in the web. This exhibition was launched in Paradela, in August 2013, and has traveled virtually all the important towns and cities of Galicia.

In addition, it has visited the Galician Centers of Barcelona, ​​León, Salamanca, Vitoria, the Universities of Cáceres, Granada and Bilbao, and the Casa de Galicia in Madrid. In Portugal he has reached the Galician Center of Lisbon, the Biblioteca Lúcio Craveiro da Silva in Braga, at the University of Minho, and the University of Faro.

Already this year, the exhibition arrived at Palas de Rei, A Fonsagrada and the Galician Center of Valladolid. But the most prominent displacement was that of the Casa de Galicia in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a new milestone in the project, which allowed reaching the 38 locations and the 16,000 kilometers that we highlighted at the beginning.


 

The maturity of the Manuel Rodríguez López project is still evident in the growing impact that it has on the media, both on paper and on the Internet. If the first exhibitions practically did not have a presence in the media beyond the advertisement in the local media, today we have hundreds of references to the Internet, newspapers, radio and television on the web.

Manuel Rodríguez López, 25 years later

Among the printed publications, we continue with the dissemination of the reissues of two publications of great importance in the project: the Poetic Anthology, created by Xesús Alonso Montero and Santiago Rodríguez, and the booklet that collects all the contents of the itinerant exhibition.

Manolo Rodríguez's works are also available to the public at the Biblioteca Virtual de GaliciaDigital, which periodically incorporates new works by the author: in these moments, 12 books are published, but this number is increasing gradually.

But the editorial novel of the year 2018 was "Manuel Rodríguez López, 25 anos despois" a book that compiles the works of half a hundred people from Galician politics and culture, and from participants in the Literary Contest of Paradela, around the figure of Manuel Rodríguez López.


 

The book includes texts (and illustrations) made in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the author's decease, which are also on the project's website, and now on paper they become the best witness of the deep patch that Manolo left in all those who surrounded him.

We can emphasize the collaborations of the mayor of Paradela (Xosé Manuel Mato), the people in charge of Culture from the Provincial Council of Lugo (Antón Bao and Mario Outeiro), the General Secretaries of Language Policy (Valentín García) and Culture (Anxo Lorenzo), graphic artists such as Álvaro de la Vega and Siro López, and authors of the likes of Adolfo Abel, Xesús Alonso Montero, Xavier Rodríguez Barrio, Darío Xohán Cabana, and many others.

Acknowledgments

If we talked in the beginning about the thousands of people who came to the project, we should also talk about all those who make all these actions possible.

All the contributors who provide materials to the web or to the publications of the project.

The teams responsible for each one of the centers where we carry the traveling exhibition, we always receive them with the greatest affection, and do everything possible so that each act is a success.

All the institutions and entities that relentlessly, year after year, give their support and encouragement to the project: the Family of Manuel Rodríguez López, the City Council of Paradela, the Royal Galician Academy, the Xunta de Galicia (General Secretariat of Language Policy) and the Regulatory Council of the Ribeira Sacra Designation of Origin.

Those people who are especially sensitive to our purpose and are present, in one way or another. They are increasingly needed and their support is unconditional: Xesús Mato, Xosé Manuel Mato, Xesús Alonso Montero, Valentín García ...

To all of them, thank you. From our hearts. We can not say much more, but if we commit ourselves to move forward with the project, continue to pursue years, to continue to travel many more miles, with Manuel Rodríguez López.