Journalist and writer Fernando Delgado dies at 77

The journalist and writer Fernando Delgado (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1947) died this Sunday at the age of 77, as confirmed by family sources to EL PAÍS.

Delgado directed the program

on Cadena Ser between 1996 and 2005. In addition, he directed Radio 3 in 1981 and later headed RNE, where he was the director from 1982 to 1986 and between 1990 and 1991.

More information

Fernando Delgado novels the Valencian and Madrid corruption in the Berlanguiana 'All to hell'

He settled in Madrid in the final stretch of the Franco regime and very soon consolidated his budding career as a journalist and writer.

Delgado also quickly expanded his circle of friends with poets like his neighbor, the Valencian Francisco Brines.

When he became homesick for the sea, he would escape by car to Gandia “on that fateful road” of that time.

Already during the Transition he used to visit some political friends in Valencia.

And years later he overcame his initial prevention and allowed himself to be convinced by Luis García Berlanga to witness a

from the filmmaker's family home.

In 2005 he left journalism and began to dedicate himself entirely to literature.

In 1995 she won the Planeta award with

while also presenting

the weekend TVE news, a story of obsessions and jealousy, whose protagonist is an executive from the Madrid upper bourgeoisie of the eighties.

In the book

 (Editorial Planeta), she fictionalized the corruption experienced since the mid-nineties in Vallina, a transcript of Valencia.

“It is a fictional novel with imagined passages and inevitable references to reality.

In other words, everything in it is imaginary and at the same time very recognizable,” explained Delgado in an interview in EL PAÍS.

In 2015 she received the Azorín Award for

The eight books of her poetic work received awards such as the Julio Tovar and the Antonio de Viana.

His book

(Planeta) stars a man who is left for dead after being accused of murdering the chief who raped his wife during the Franco regime.

With this work he completed his so-called drowned man trilogy, made up of 

“Literature makes you search and look at things, also your own life, even if you are inventing other worlds, in a different way,” he stated in another interview with this newspaper.

Delgado was also a regional deputy for the PSPV-PSOE between 2015 and 2019. The journalist defined himself as “a Christian without a church, a lifelong socialist but now with a party.”

He was always interested in politics, but he never became active until a few years ago, when the former Valencian president, Ximo Puig, proposed a seat to him.

“I have always been very politicized, since my youth, in which I had political and also religious spaces,” he recalled.

Very few people leave an indelible mark.

Fernando Delgado was, for me, one of them.

Fernando just left us.

And the sadness is immense.

I am only consoled by everything he has taught us and loved us.

And that Paco Brines already enjoys him up there.

Thanks my friend.

pic.twitter.com/RLn7CTf1A0

— Ximo Puig (@ximopuig) February 18, 2024

Puig has written on his X account: “Very few people leave an indelible mark.

Fernando Delgado was, for me, one of them.

The sadness is immense.

He only comforts me with everything he has taught us and loved us.

And that Paco Brines already enjoys him up there.

Thanks my friend".

In recognition of his career in journalism, he received a National Television Ondas Award and an Antena de Oro. He also won the Pérez Galdós Award, and the Planeta Award for

, in 1995.