The plenary session of the Madrid City Council has finally approved this Tuesday to appoint Almudena Grandes, who died on November 27 at the age of 61, a victim of cancer, the city's favorite daughter posthumously, although Vox has voted against.
The author, who became known with
The Ages of Lulú
in 1989 and established herself with
Malena is a name of tango
in 1994, thus becomes the first female favorite daughter of the capital after months of scuffles and thanks to an agreement to carry out municipal budgets.
The controversy started just three days after her death, when the first attempt was made to have her recognized as the favorite daughter of her hometown.
The groups of the left took to vote in the municipal plenary session different proposals on how Madrid should remember Grandes.
Only three of them received the approval of the plenary session: dedicate a tribute to her throughout this year, a street in the capital and place a plaque to remember the writer at her home on Calle Larra.
The initiative of the Mixed Group (called Recupera Madrid and split from Más Madrid) to name her favorite daughter was rejected with the votes against by PP and Ciudadanos, who voted yes to the above but, in this case, alluded to the need to reach to an unreached consensus.
Vox also said no.
But the councilors of the Mixed Group -at that time four-, included the recognition of Grandes at one point in the pact to approve the municipal Budgets of 2022. PP and Ciudadanos signed it with them, given the impossibility of reissuing a budget agreement with Vox.
The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said then that the writer did not deserve the title and considered that the fact that it was going to be awarded to her was the result of a "weakness" on the left.
The poet Luis García Montero, the writer's widower after 30 years of relationship, called the mayor's statements "mean".
“He should treat us Madrid residents with more dignity.
If he feels like a traitor to his far-right friends, that's him.
Thanks to Madrid and the City Council for naming Almudena a favorite daughter”, he said.
The Recupera Madrid proposal continued its course and in the Culture, Tourism and Sports Commission on the 15th, the elevation to plenary session was approved ―with the approval of all the groups and with the abstention of Vox― the proposal to declare Grandes a daughter posthumously favourite.
During the debate on the proposal, Vox explained its vote against it because, according to its spokesman, Javier Ortega Smith, Grandes had made statements in recent years with which they disagreed about the Civil War.
“He said that every morning he would shoot two or three voices that drive her crazy.
Go democrat”, Ortega has affirmed.
The municipal spokesman for Vox has also criticized that Almeida "has submitted" to supporting this initiative when for months he said that Grandes "did not deserve" to be a favorite daughter.
The spokeswoman for the PSOE, Mar Espinar, has celebrated that "Almudena Grandes finally receives the embrace of Madrid" and "goes from the libraries to the streets of the capital, which thanks her for her works".
On behalf of Más Madrid, Jorge García Castaño agreed that "her merit as a writer is unfathomable" and applauded this tribute to the author "who has written the best in Madrid".
The delegate of Culture, Andrea Levy, has indicated that the writer "lived with passion her condition as a neighbor of the city" and described "the traditional scenarios of Madrid".
"The City Council recognizes his passion for the city in which he lived" and in which "he built his own universe that he shared with his thousands of readers", Levy pointed out, concluding that "the best way to honor a writer is by reading his work".
The Plaza de la Guardia de Corps, Moreto Street, the Casa de las Flores or the Almudena Cemetery are some of the locations that Grandes, a columnist for EL PAÍS, placed on the maps of stories such as
The Frozen Heart
or
Malena is a tango name
.
The protagonist of The Three Weddings of Manolita
lived on Calle de Santa Isabel
, while the Madrid of la movida is the setting for
Castillos de Cartón
.
From the Mixed Group, Marta Higueras has valued her "commitment to women, to the losers" and thanked Levy for the writer's profile as well as the fact that Grandes "will remain forever, and as it should, in the memory of Madrid".
Before Grandes, this recognition was approved in 2012 for Plácido Domingo, and in 2015 for Julio Iglesias.
The last personality to whom it has been awarded was the urban planner Arturo Soria (1844-1920), responsible for the City of Madrid, among other projects in 2021, posthumously.
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