Otero Pedrayo House Museum

Just 15 kilometres from the city of Ourense, in the small village of Trasalba, in the municipality of Amoeiro, is the family home of Ramón Otero Pedrayo (Ourense, 1888-1976), one of the most relevant writers of the Xeración Nós, the best articulated cultural project of pre-war Galicia.

The intellectual spent long periods here, devoted to reading, writing and reflection. It was here that he took refuge during the difficult war and post-war years and it was here that he wrote and set some of his best-known works, such as Los caminos de la vida (1928) and Alrededor de sí (1939).

In addition, from Trasalba, Otero, the geographer of Galicia, designed an interpretation of the Galician landscape and geography. The crops, the cycles of the countryside, the life of the villagers, provided him with the raw material for many of his journalistic articles and essays. The small village served him as a human, geographical and historical model when it came to outlining a theory of identity on which to base a valid discourse to defend the rights and interests of Galicia. A discourse that the intellectual would disseminate from the political tribune and from the pages of such important publications in our literature as the magazine Nós (1920-1936).

Over the years, this unique house has become a point of reference for the leading figures of the Galician intelligentsia. In 1934 Castelao spent a few days there. It was then that he designed the gallery on the main façade. Vicente Risco, Otero's childhood friend, was a regular visitor, as were later Francisco Fernández del Riego, Domingo García-Sabell, Aquilino Iglesia Alvariño, Alonso Ríos, Celso Emilio Ferreiro... and many others.

The house, currently managed by the Otero Pedrayo Foundation, conserves a large part of the writer's books and personal objects. Through its Board of Trustees, this institution looks after his heritage and organises all kinds of publications and cultural and informative events. Once a year, the Otero Pedrayo Foundation awards the Trasalba Prize to an outstanding personality of our culture.

A walk through the surroundings of the House Museum (soto, Romanesque church, fairground...) allows us to better understand the literary and ideological keys of the man who has been called the Patriarch of Galician Letters. Moreover, in Trasalba, the Poet of the Mountain, Antonio Noriega Varela (Mondoñedo, 1869-Viveiro, 1947) lived for years, and it was in this place that he would develop a large part of his meticulous poetic work.

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