With only 19 years, Leandro Perdomo founded his first newspaper. The post-war period (the newspaper was born in 1940) was so hard that Leandro even printed it with wrapping paper. This is just one of the harsh experiences that marked the writer's life. Last Saturday, the Teguise City Council paid tribute to him, coinciding with the fifteenth anniversary of his death. The place chosen was the Casa Museo Palacio Spínola, a very special place because Perdomo's grandfather lived there, and many relatives and friends of the artist came to that place.
Thus, the round table that was held was composed of the cultural advisor of the Teguise City Council, Francisco Hernández Delgado; Leandro Perdomo's granddaughter, Josefina Perdomo; the director of the foundational activities of the FCM, Fernando Gómez Aguilera; the writer Víctor Ramírez, and the journalists Mario Alberto Perdomo and Mario Ferrer. In addition, all his children, Alejandra, Manolo, Juliana, Marciano and Leandro and most of his grandchildren also attended the evening. At the round table, the figure of the writer was dignified and it was recalled that he not only has a local dimension, since "they have always been an internationally renowned writer, who is growing day by day and the more time passes, the more clearly his value will be recognized", according to Gómez Aguilera.
His first newspaper, in digital version
For his part, the journalist Mario Ferrer pointed out that they had located a citizen "who has all the issues of the newspaper "Pronóstico"", which Leandro Perdomo edited in Lanzarote in the 1940s, and that "the Cabildo, in the near future, is going to digitize them so that any scholar or curious person of theera can have them". At the evening, all those present recalled that, despite the hard life he had, Leandro Perdomo never sold his art.
"He maintained himself with elegance above the need, even though privations surrounded him all his life", they point out from the Teguise City Council. The city in which he died does not forget how important his career was and is, which is why the Department of Culture designed a literary contest in his honor, called "Leandro Perdomo Short Story and Narrative Contest".
A life with few lights and many shadows
Leandro Perdomo Spínola was born in Arrecife on May 11, 1921. In 1940 he founded and directed his first newspaper "Pronósticos", editing it first in Lanzarote and then in Gran Canaria. This medium was even published on wrapping paper for lack of other material.
Due to the lack of means, he is forced to close the newspaper, so he has to subsist by doing everything: he works in furniture, carries sacks, pulls stones, works as a commission agent, insurance agent, street vendor...? He spends twelve years like this, publishing two small books, "Ten Stories" (1953) and "The Port of Light" (1955).
In 1957 he emigrates to Belgium to work in the coal mines. When he has been there for five years, he founds the first Spanish-Canarian newspaper in Brussels. Thus, in April 1963, the newspaper "Volcán" was born, subtitled as "Informative newspaper of culture and sports", which is distributed in Germany, France and England.
Leandro Perdomo, ill with chronic bronchitis and above all tired, in 1968 decides to return to Lanzarote in search of a few months of rest, but his stay in the Islands is prolonged due to the economic impotence that allows him to return. He settles in his old house in the Villa de Teguise and works such as "We the Emigrants" (1970); "Lanzarote and I" (1972); "From my crater" (1975); and "Island Chronicles" (1978) emerge. In addition, he resumes his collaborations with all the newspapers of the land. In 1993 he dies in Teguise.