The mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, José Manuel Bermúdez, chaired yesterday the act of discovery of the plaque by which the Calle del Perdón, in the Salamanca district, will henceforth bear the name of Domingo Pérez Minik, playwright, essayist , studious and cultural critic, born and made professionally in the city.
The awarding of honors is due to the agreement adopted by the Plenary of the City Council on July 30 to perpetuate the name of the intellectual in the memory of the town of Santa Cruz. A recognition promoted by the Domingo Pérez Minik Observatory, to which various institutions and associations of the municipality have adhered, as well as others of a regional scope, as well as writers, artists and personalities from the world of culture.
The ceremony was also attended by the first deputy mayor and councilor of the Centro-Ifara district, Guillermo Díaz Guerra; the mayor of Culture, Gladis de León, and the vice president of the Council of Tenerife, Enrique Arriaga, together with representatives of the municipal Corporation, as well as various personalities from the world of culture in the capital of Tenerife.
During the ceremony, the mayor described Domingo Pérez Minik as “an extraordinary human and intellectual chicharrero; a referential poet of the interwar period and beacon of the bustling and combative cultural life of the city in the first third of the 20th century ”.
The first mayor of the capital explained that the event arises at the proposal of the Domingo Pérez Minik Cultural Observatory. “A group of men and women concerned about stoking the debate about the present and the future of society and the arts in the Canary Islands, thus taking on the intellectual legacy that the honoree left us.”
José Manuel Bermúdez added that “it is a group of committed people, such as artists, writers, creators and lovers of culture and the arts, with ample arguments to catalyze institutions and entities of the municipality around this initiative, as well as others from regional scope, and contrasted figures from the cultural world ”.
The journalist and writer Juan Cruz Ruiz, as a member of the Cultural Observatory, closed the event to gloss the figure of the honoree.
Domingo Pérez Minik was key in the cultural development of the city, from his residence on Calle del Perdón, which as of yesterday bears his name. In addition to other professional dedications, in 1925 he began to write in the Tenerife Gazette as a sports writer, using the pseudonym Minik. In 1926, in the magazine Hespérides, he published his first essays and literary criticism.
In 1932, he joined the Spanish painter, art critic and writer Eduardo Westendahl in the magazine Gaceta de Arte, participating in its writing and turning it into a significant publication of the European avant-gardes. In 1952, his first book Anthology of Canarian poetry appeared. At the same time he resumed his theatrical activity at the Círculo de Bellas Artes and in 1957 he entered the Instituto de Estudios Canarios.
Trajectory
The honoree was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of La Laguna, he was awarded the Gold Medal for merit in Fine Arts, he was the Canary Islands Prize for Literature and the National Theater Prize, member of the Association Internationale del Critiques Litteraires de Paris and academic number of the Royal Canarian Academy of Fine Arts of San Miguel Arcángel.
His career shows that Domingo Pérez Minik can be considered one of the relevant figures of the Canarian literature.
