“From being in a furrow in the field buried up to my eyes, I never dreamed of sitting in an editor's office to have a book published, and, in the last five years I have written seven and as many pending release...”
Emilio Fernández, a multifaceted resident of Tías, a dancer since early childhood, a timple player, a composer of folk lyrics, a member and director of several musical groups, a folklorist, a partygoer, a tireless student and, recently, is taking full advantage of his creative flow to publish different books of poems, novels in pairs and stories, with a high command of handling all literary genres.
Emilio was born into a large family of nine siblings in 1966, in the popular hamlet of Hoyo del Agua, when the dry stone walls surrounded the roads and lands, and abundant tomatoes, onions and cereals were still produced, also, in the same year that Tías and Lanzarote opened up to tourism. From a young age he helped with farm work, among donkeys, goats and camels, planting chives and tomato plants, which forced him to leave school at the age of twelve. He gets a job in the new tourist industry as a waiter and kitchen assistant. Emilio builds his house with self-help, like the rest of his family, on the road to Las Tabaibas, in a "small piece of family land". Later, as the municipality transforms, he changes jobs to taxi driver, delivery driver and other sporadic occupations until he becomes a maintenance worker for the Tías town hall. When he is older, he resumes his studies to obtain his School Graduate degree and accesses the access course to the University for people over 25 years of age at the UNED of Lanzarote and begins to study Law as a hobby. He has already passed the meridian of his career and continues to prepare individual subjects, he is in no hurry to put on the toga, this accomplished writer.
In the decade of the seventies, Emilio dedicated himself to his folkloric stage, he started very young at the age of six, joining as a dancer in the "Agrupación Gaida", his older brothers and sisters took him to the Casino del Morro and there he rehearsed three times a week in the rondalla until 1979, the year in which the group went into hibernation. From the year 2001 it was reactivated under his presidency and has always been part of the popular festivals of Tías and they have been able to travel to other municipalities and places of the Canary Islands, Madrid, Santander La Coruña, Murcia, Mallorca Ibiza and another long list of folkloric encounters.
Emilio was also a member of the San Antonio de Tías Folk Group in the period from 1984 to 1997, and this tireless folklorist, a lover of revelry, did not hesitate to also learn to play the timple and when he does not dance, he sings and, if it comes to hand, he "furrunguea" his particular "sonorous little camel".
Emilio Fernández Batista, was always fond of and liked to make couplets, poems and "assonated" songs, but it was not until one day when he saw a poster inviting all the daring to participate in the Contest of Letters of Love and Heartbreak "Los Novios de El Mojón", convened by Teguise. He attended and won the First Prize with the work entitled "She is a song" in 2014, months later he would win the Second prize in the poetry contest; Life and Work of Jorge Manrique in Ciudad Real and it is then when he decides to publish his first book of poems "Geiser, Roots of Burning Lava" (2015) with a prologue by F. José Navarro. Based on the traditions of his Canary Islands, the author enters for the first time in the writing of a book. Loves, heartbreaks and pretensions, permeate each verse and each story, very respectful of classical poetry, he dares with tenths, verses of broken foot, pavanas, sonnets etc, and even defies the same Provençal sextina to express his feelings both to the land that saw him born, as his way of seeing life.
Given the good reception of his first publication and other prizes won in the "Concursos de Coplas Guanapay" in 2015 and 2016, he creates a new book of poems that would be titled "In the Corners of the Soul" at the end of the last year mentioned and with a prologue by Agustín Lasso Tadeo. Emilio, revives the fire that was locked in "Geiser", sheds each feeling, each illusion and each love hidden in his experiences and pretensions. Classical poetry continues to occupy most of its pages, giving more and more space to contemporary poetry and betting on raising poetic prose, the story and the novel....
"Tarajales Rojos" (Red Tarajales) (2018) is the title of this exciting work when Emilio enters the unknown terrain of novelizing and surprises us with this change of genre and gives us this romantic detective novel, with absence of drama but impregnated with social and solidarity tint, to which he invites me to prologize. Action, murders, corruption, deceptions, betrayal, love suspense, intrigue and other events in its pages of a thriller, where danger lurks and where everyone is watched by everyone. Emilio transports us to all the scenarios where Serena and Alberto go; from Famara to Corralejo, passing through Puerto Lajas to the tarajales of Ajui.
Emilio Fernández's first novel was a success and sold out the edition in a short period of time. Encouraged by the "high", in a record time he compiled a handful of poems and songs that he had on the shelf and publishes them under the title of "Éxtasis", the prologue is by David García González. "Assonated" and Manrique or broken foot verses, the tenth spinels, seguidillas between sonnets, redondillas in the couplets and in other feelings, vetos, Haikus and tankas from the east, quintets to the sextina, loves in a corner and delusions of the ordinary.
Between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, Emilio makes two publications about two chilling stories. "When Justice was sleeping", approaching the centenary of the murder of Maria del Rosario Cruz Bello and the undue death of her sister Petra, the author begins the path of investigation, until he captures in a Dramatic Work everything that happened, according to official and not so official sources, in the payment of Teseguite (Teguise) Rapes, slanders, abuses, murders. Justice was not justice, people were angry at the injustice, but they kept silent... Although a hundred years have passed, those sister souls are still waiting for an explanation of why those who knew the truth kept silent.
"The Tacoronte Crime" is the second shocking installment that took place in that northern city of Tenerife dating from the early twentieth century with the murder of Teodora Mesa, better known as Dora the water carrier of Tacoronte. Pancho emigrated to Cuba in search of a better life. The real murderer also emigrated, unknowingly, to the same place as him, but fleeing from Justice. In both heartbreaking stories, Emilio takes care and reinforces the presentations with music and videos notably illustrated.
"Nostalgia" published in December 2021, is the seventh "production" of Emilio Fernández, presents us with thirty stories by the hand of "Don Servando" makes you travel through the history of our people with a fairly achieved oratory, in relation to the times. Tales of farming, forbidden courtships, bloody inheritances, barriers of time and even encounters with the Santa Compaña, among other events that occur in different scenarios that make you shed a tear, or mark a good smile on your face.
I end by confessing that I have visited in Emilio's modest office, the place where he forges and transcribes his great creative flow, several red folders warn of the upcoming appearances: "Jauría" (Ready to print with ISBN and D Legal); "Al Borde del Infierno" (Novel); "Sara, la Mujer del Oficial"; and the last "Catarsis de emociones".
