A private institution promoting literary creation; 1863 was both the year the building housing it was constructed and the year of the historic Galician literary Renaissance.
A private entity founded and directed by the poet and cultural activist Yolanda Castaño, the 1863 Literary Residence is a creative retirement for writers and translators, located in the historic heart of A Coruña (Galicia – Spain).
An 1863 Fisherman’s house, but with all the comforts and a careful design, hosts stays -typically four weeks- in which the author can deepen his or her creative writing, combining the introspective concentration on his or her work with the eventual immersion in the rich and stimulating cultural, scenic and human life of the city of A Coruña.
The residence consists of a 70 m2 historic flat for individual use. It consists of a living room and work space, a library, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, as well as a balcony overlooking the dock of A Coruña. Opposite the Provincial Library and the Rosalía de Castro Theatre, everything is designed to encourage creative work.
In Galicia and Spain there is still very little support for literature in its creative process. There are prizes that are awarded once the individual effort has been made by the author without help, in a self-management that often takes time away from leisure, rest or family time.
A change of paradigm should have come from supporting writers not only a posteriori, but also during the gestation phase: providing space, time and conditions for them to develop their creative work.
A Residence is thus a source of oxygen, a parenthesis and a respite from daily duties and distractions to be able to concentrate on creative writing. To feel like an author 24 hours a day, while benefiting from a place as free of symbolic burdens as a tabula rasa. Also from a stimulating, receptive and capable space that takes us away from the familiarities, manias and routines of our creative comfort zone.
Aware of the inspired fecundity that stays in residence can achieve as authors, Yolanda Castaño embarked alone on what is the project of her life. And she founded, without public or private aid and capitalising on all her international contacts, experiences as an author in residence on several continents, her career as a cultural manager and her personal economic resources, the 1863 Literary Residence in the city where she has lived for several decades: A Coruña.
For this purpose, she acquired and renovated a 19th century Fisherman’s house located in the heart of the city, in a renovation commissioned by the architectural studio Hábitat Social Cooperativa Gallega. The renovation maintains elements of traditional Galician architecture (such as the century-old granite walls and chestnut roof) with all the comforts and technology of modernity. From one of the main and most beautiful pedestrian streets of the old town, the space overlooks the dock of A Coruña and everything in it is focused on concentration and creative work.
Since then, storytellers and poets, translators, playwrights and non-fiction authors from Europe, Asia and America have conceived new works from within its centenary walls.
1863 was the year in which the building that houses this private institution for the promotion of literary creation was erected.
It was also the year in which Rosalía de Castro – a leading figure of Galician Literature – published her unique work ‘Cantares Gallegos’, which dates the true renaissance of modern Galician culture. An inspiring revival for an entity that is located in the same street to which we can link Emilia Pardo Bazán, the Irmandades da Fala, the original Galician Royal Academy, the temporary home of Rosalía de Castro and Murguía or the first pictorial exhibition of an adolescent Pablo Picasso.
From all of them, to the hands of the Georgian Iva Pezuashvili as they drafted – within our walls – the novel that would win the European Union Prize for Literature 2022, a line is drawn that, with humility but also tenacity and enthusiasm, we aspire to continue.
The poet and cultural manager Yolanda Castaño, with almost three decades dedicated to cultural promotion around the word, founded and directs the Residencia Literara 1863.
One of the most popular and international names in Galician poetry today, Castaño has been coordinating -since 2009- several stable projects, always with Galician and international poets:
For the first of these he received the Galician Critics’ Prize 2014 and the Follas Novas Prize for the Galician Book 2022 for the Best Cultural Initiative.
Also winner of the Rodolfo Prada Award in Cultural Management, Castaño has developed many other proposals for the Xunta de Galicia, the Government Delegation in Galicia, the City Councils of A Coruña, Pontevedra, Allariz or Ribadeo; Abanca, Luís Seoane, Vicente Risco, Camilo José Cela or Sargadelos Foundations. He has also curated poetry festivals in Slovenia and Panama.
As a poet, she has featured her literary work in more than forty-five countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa, has been translated into more than thirty languages and has received grants in residence at the Writers and Translators’ Centre of Rhodes (Greece), at the Villa Waldberta (Munich), at the HIP-Beijing (China), at the Hawthornden Castle (Scotland), at the Valparaíso Foundation (Andalusia), at the Saari Residence (Finland), at the Uxío Novoneyra Foundation and Pazo de Tor (Galicia), at the Dorland Arts Colony (California), at the Nilüfer Writers’ House (Turkey) and at the Manoir de Laroque del Prat (Occitania, France).
For her eight individual poetry collections published to date (with bilingual Galician-Spanish editions published by Visor for the rest of Spain and Latin America) she has received awards such as the Spanish National Poetry Award 2023, two Spanish Critics’ Awards (1998 and 2022), the Galician Culture Award, the Ojo Crítico for the best poem (1998 and 2022), the Ojo Crítico for the best young poet in Spain, the Estandarte Prize 2020 for the Best Poetry Book published in Spain and the ‘Author of the Year’ for Galician Booksellers.
Her bibliography also includes works as an editor, scholar of Galician poetry, biographer of poets, author of poetry for children and translator of contemporary poets, and she develops a multitude of experiences that mix poetry with music, visual arts, audiovisuals, architecture, comics, 360º cinema and even gastronomy.
Some people related to the world of creative writing and books who support the project of the Residencia Literaria 1863:
The 1863 Literary Residence is dressed with some pieces of visual art -especially from Galicia and A Coruña- such as engravings, paintings, serigraphs and photographs, capable of providing a greater cultural context and a suggestive encouragement to the authors in residence.
Generous accomplices with our impulse to the real creative work taken during its production process itself, some good artists from A Coruña have donated works to enrich this project and these installations, thanks to them, even more inspiring. These are, for example, Manuel Suárez and Roberto Díaz from A Coruña.
In addition, our residence has eventually hosted readings from the balcony, private concerts in the living room or other proposals related to or based on music.
