Antón Tovar, the Poet of A Pereira (Rairiz de Veiga)

Antón Tovar (Antonio Domingo José Tovar Bobillo) was born in A Pereira, in the municipality of Rairiz de Veiga, on 23 October 1921 and died in Ourense on 16 June 2004. He was a poet who wrote in Spanish and in Galician, placed in the so-called «linking generation», with work marked by pessimism, existentialism, introspection, social concern and an ever-frustrated search for God ^[1]. He was a corresponding member (1984) and honorary member (1997) of the Royal Galician Academy ^[1].

Childhood and education

He spent part of his childhood in Celanova and then the family moved to Ourense, where he completed his secondary schooling and received lessons from Ramón Otero Pedrayo. He was a cousin of Tovar’s mother María del Carmen Fernández, wife of Vicente Risco, who lent him books by Ramón Cabanillas, Antonio Noriega Varela, Gonzalo López Abente and Rosalía de Castro ^[1].

In 1940 he began Philosophy and Letters in Santiago de Compostela, a degree he abandoned to enter the Jesuit novitiate in Salamanca, where he stayed little more than a year (1941-1942). His father had died in May 1941 ^[1].

Civil servant in Ourense

In 1942 he won a competitive examination as State accountant and was posted to León and, a year later, to Ourense, where he worked at the Ministry of Finance. There he mixed with Otero Pedrayo, Risco (whom he revered despite their ideological differences), Florentino López Cuevillas, Xesús Ferro Couselo, Alberto Vilanova, Xosé Luís López Cid, Xaquín Lorenzo and Luís Trabazo ^[1].

He worked for the Treasury until 1967, when he was dismissed for his clandestine membership of the PCE-PCG. He then took a job at the Tanco bookshop, which gave him access to books banned by the censors ^[1]. In 1968 he met Antonia Mirayo Pérez, «Tucha», whom he married that same year and who stayed with him until her death on 16 July 2000. In February 1973 he travelled to Mexico with Celso Emilio Ferreiro and Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín, invited by the Mexican government for the tribute to León Felipe ^[1].

His work

Tovar began publishing in Spanish in the 1950s, with the collection Barro de nadie (1955). In 1962 he published Arredores in Galician, followed by other books. His early works include a defence of the language, but what runs through all of them is a pessimistic existentialism. Among his influences he named Rosalía, Curros, Rubén Darío, Antonio Machado, Baudelaire, Francis Jammes, Blas de Otero, Teixeira de Pascoaes, Pessoa, Antero de Quental, Torga and, above all, Antón Tovar himself ^[1]. He was above all a poet, but also published stories, diaries and essays; he contributed little to the press and gave neither recitals nor lectures ^[1].

In Galician he published ^[1]:

• Poetry: Arredores (1962), Non (1967), Poesía galega completa (1974), Calados esconxuros (1980), Berros en voz baixa (1990), A nada destemida (1991), Cadáver adiado (2001), Poesía en galego I (1962-1975) and II (1980-2001) (PEN Clube de Galicia, 2005) and the Antoloxía poética de Antón Tovar (Xerais, 2023), edited by Delfín Caseiro with a foreword by Xesús Alonso Montero.
• Fiction: A grande ilusión e outros contos (Galaxia, 1989).
• Diaries and essays: Diario sin datas (1987), Diario íntimo dun vello revoltado (2001) and the essay «Xoán XXIII e a Terra» (1966).

The book of conversations with X. M. del Caño, Antonio Tovar: conversas cun vello revoltado (Galaxia, 2005), records his voice most directly ^[1]. In 2010 the regional website xinzodelimia.eu devoted a page to him listing the titles then in print, among them Poesía en galego, A grande ilusión e outros contos, A nada destemida, Conversas cun vello revoltado, Diario íntimo dun vello revoltado and Vida de Sócrates ^[2].

Prizes and recognition

• First and third prize at the Jogos Florais of Guimarães in 1960 for the poems «O can» and «Responso saudoso pra D. Enrique o Navegante», and first prize in 1972 for «Deume a risa» ^[1].
• Amor Ruibal Prize (1966) for the essay «Xoán XXIII e a Terra» ^[1].
• Galicia Critics’ Prize (1981) for Calados esconxuros, Losada Diéguez (1991) and Celanova, Casa dos Poetas (2003) ^[1].
• In 2002 the plenary of the RAG unanimously proposed him as the Galician poets’ candidate for the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry ^[1].
• In 2006 the Consellería de Cultura published A rabela da pluma, a record in which the Valdeorras singer-songwriter Anxo Rei set poems by Tovar to music ^[1][5].

He died in Ourense, after a long illness, in the early hours of 16 June 2004; his ashes rest in the cemetery of San Francisco ^[1].

A Limia and Antón Tovar

From 2005 the Concello of Rairiz de Veiga, the Museo da Limia, the Centro de Cultura Popular da Limia and the Liceo de Ourense organised the Antón Tovar Poetry Prize ^[1]. The Museo da Limia (Vilar de Santos) carries the banner of his memory:

• In 2018 it presented, at a double event, the CD Casares, Valente, Tovar. Ourense, Xenebra, A Limia and del Caño’s book, with pupils of the CEIP Carlos Cid Arregui in Rairiz de Veiga reading extracts ^[5].
• In 2021, the centenary of his birth, it opened an exhibition at the Biblioteca da Limia (13 September to 26 October) with first editions, unpublished texts, manuscripts, documents from his life, the original illustrations by Arturo Baltar for his first book, El tren y las cosas, and caricatures and portraits of Limian authors ^[3]. On 16 October it held a «conversa na taberna» about the poet in its bar.
• In 2022 it delivered to the headquarters of the Royal Galician Academy a file with several hundred signatures and documents requesting that the Día das Letras Galegas be dedicated to him. In 2023 Galaxia and Xerais published the poetry anthology designed for school readers ^[4].
• In 2024, twenty years after his death, it launched the «Antón Tovar» Literary Competition: original, unpublished texts in Galician, in prose (up to 400 words) or verse (up to 30 lines), reflecting on some aspect of his work or person ^[4]. In 2025 the jury, chaired by Conchita Rúa, met again, and in April 2025 the Board once more pressed its request to the RAG ^[5].
• In June 2025 he was one of the names proposed for the Día das Letras Galegas of 2026 ^[1].

Links

• People of A Limia
• Rairiz de Veiga, his home municipality
• Museo da Limia, in Vilar de Santos

Sources

1. «Antón Tovar», Galician Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antón_Tovar
2. «Antón Tovar Bobillo (1921-2004)», xinzodelimia.eu (Wayback capture of 22/01/2010). https://web.archive.org/web/20100122011234/http://www.xinzodelimia.eu:80/anton_tovar.htm
3. «1921–2021. Exposición Centenario Antón Tovar», Museo da Limia, 13/09/2021. https://museodalimia.com/1921-2021-exposicion-centenario-anton-tovar/
4. «Certame literario Antón Tovar», Museo da Limia, 10/04/2024. https://museodalimia.com/certame-literario-anton-tovar/
5. «O Padroado do Museo da Limia insta á Real Academia Galega…», Museo da Limia, 23/04/2025; «Doble presentación dun libro e un compacto sobre Antón Tovar», Museo da Limia, 13/04/2018. https://museodalimia.com/o-padroado-do-museo-da-limia-insta-a-real-academia-galega-a-que-lle-dedique-o-dia-das-letra-galegas-2026-a-anton-tovar/
6. «O Museo da Limia celebrará o centenario do nacemento do poeta Antón Tovar». https://vialethes.es/museo-limia-homenaxeara-poeta-anton-tovar-centenario
7. «O Museo da Limia convoca o certame literario Antón Tovar». https://vialethes.es/museo-limia-certame-literario-anton-tovar
8. «O Día das Letras Galegas 2023 para Antón Tovar Bobillo, o poeta da Limia.». https://historiadexinzo.wordpress.com/2021/09/26/o-dia-das-letras-galegas-2023-para-anton-tovar-bobillo-o-poeta-da-limia/