Ruben Gallego: biography and works

Ruben Gallego is a famous writer and journalist, born in the Soviet Union. He received an autobiographical novel "White on Black". For him, he received a prestigious literary award - "Booker - Open Russia".

The writer's parents

Ruben Gallego was born in Moscow in 1968. His biography is really amazing. Ruben's parents met at the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. His father came to the USSR to study from South America. He was a Venezuelan. In the capital of the Soviet Union, he learned the basics of economic theory.

Mother was Spanish, her name was Aurora Gallego. Her father, the grandfather of the hero of our article, was very famous. Ignacio Gallego was the general secretary of the Spanish Communist Party. After graduating from the philological faculty of the Moscow State University, Aurora worked as an interpreter and journalist, cooperated with the international independent radio station Radio Liberty. Her relationship with Ruben's father was not long-term.

In 1974, she married a writer and journalist Sergei Yurenen, who had emigrated to the West at that time. They worked together for Radio Liberty. The couple broke up in 1998, after 24 years of marriage.

A terrible diagnosis

Ruben Gonzalez Gallego received a terrible diagnosis from doctors at birth. The child was almost completely paralyzed. Doctors put him cerebral palsy.

When Ruben was one and a half years old, his mother was informed that he was dead. In fact, the baby was sent to the disabled children's home. In the Soviet Union so often came with hopelessly sick babies.

As a result, Ruben Gallego spent all his childhood, wandering from one orphanage to another. And it was not only children's homes, but also homes for the elderly. The young boy visited the town of Pasha in Leningrad region, Nizhny Lomov near Penza, Novocherkassk, boarding school in Trubchevsk in Bryansk region.

In all these social institutions, there was often no even basic medical care, not to mention the fact that a patient with a diagnosis like Gallego needs specific treatment and care.

In Nizhni Lomovsk teachers recalled that Ruben Gallego did not know how to write, but already easily reproduced large volumes of text from memory, like a tape recorder. Such a memory of him remained with the teacher of mathematics Olga Amvrosenkova. Many who communicated with him even in childhood, recognized that the boy's brain was arranged in a special way. He was a real walking encyclopedia. Several times I read all the books I found in local libraries at orphanages and nursing homes.

Love of life

Only love of life, like those of the heroes of the same story by Jack London, saved Gallego from the rapid death and vegetation in the boarding schools for the hopelessly sick. Ruben David Gonzalez Gallego constantly aspired to self-education, dreamed of breaking out of this environment.

As a result, he managed almost impossible. He received a secondary education and entered the commercial and commercial technical school in Novocherkassk. This is in the Rostov region. Here he received a law degree.

Life in Europe

In 2001, when he was 33 years old, he met his mother for the first time in a conscious age. I stayed with her in Prague. After that I began to travel around Europe and the world. He lived in German Freiburg, Spanish Madrid. In the middle of 2000 he left for the USA.

In 2011 in America, he had a misfortune, which almost led to a tragedy. Ruben David Gallego, along with the wheelchair in which he was sitting, fell on the subway rails in Washington. The writer was hospitalized, spent almost a month unconscious. Readers and fans of his talent from around the world collected money to help him recover. And many of them accompanied with these words: "The book" White on Black "helped me, now it's my turn." He was even offered to nominate for the "Russian Booker of the Decade" award, but Gallego refused it when he came to himself.

Now he lives in Israel. He leads a full life. He was married three times. He has three daughters. Two, from the first two marriages, now continue to live in Russia.

"White on black"

The most famous novel, which was written by Ruben Gallego - "White on black." It was published in 2002. In 2003 he received one of the most prestigious literary domestic awards "Booker - Open Russia".

This is a sincere autobiographical novel in which the author tells about his life in Soviet children's homes. Severely ill children, such as Gallego, in these social institutions had a difficult time. The narrative is vivid, memorable, shocking in places by its frankness and by the way it was really arranged and what are the orders in such institutions.

After the publication in Russia, the book was translated into dozens of world languages. The play based on the novel Gallego Marina Brusnikina staged at the Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov. In 2009, one more embodiment of the novel on stage was performed by the director of the Orlovsky Drama Theater Gennady Trostyanetsky.

For those who are not indifferent

It is safe to say that the novel "White on Black" will not leave anyone indifferent, so this is a novel for everyone. Ruben Gallego, whose biography could be the basis of a script of some life-affirming Hollywood film (or maybe even will), describes in detail his difficult life.

Being paralyzed from birth, he managed to get an education. Roman wrote on the computer with two fingers of his left hand. Only they have workers. In his work Gallego talks about his childhood, friends, most of whom, like him, are chained to wheelchairs or beds. The staff in these facilities treats guests neglected. The nurses constantly get angry with them, swearing and shouting, knowing that these children do not have anyone to help or protect them. Teachers in these specialized children's homes were also. Only they constantly told about the great Country of the Soviets and its wise leaders, practically without giving any other knowledge. Although, of course, there were exceptions.

The state of affairs in orphanages

Ruben Gallego, whose books are imbued with sincerity, describes in detail the state of affairs in Soviet children's homes. Readers will learn which establishments can be considered good, and which are bad children's homes.

A good one is one in which the basic necessary conditions for life are provided. Warm, timely care, proper nutrition. The main thing is the opportunity to get an education. This is one of the key points.

According to Gallego, a disabled person should be able to develop his legs if he does not have hands, and vice versa. The main thing that must always be done is to develop one's head. Do yourself self-education.

Teachers play an important role in children's homes. And Gallego admits that in his novel he talks only about good teachers. Often these were people with a brilliant education, but they were unnecessary and superfluous in society.

The story of the Hero

It is worth noting that the novel Gallego is absolutely truthful and autobiographical. All that is stated on its pages is true. Every story, every episode is real.

At the same time, "White on Black" is not a classic documentary work. If it were so, according to the events described in it, it would be possible to have dozens of real criminal cases. Because the actions of nurses and medical staff often come at best under the definition of "negligence". But Gallego, describing all these horrors, does not give names and dates. Although, of course, they remember them.

His main goal is to write a novel about the Hero. The person who won this system in spite of everything.

"I'm sitting on the beach"

In 2005, he released another novel by Ruben Gallego. The writer's photo by that time often appears in literary magazines.

In the center of the narrative is the life of two friends who, not of their own free will, live in isolation from the whole world around them. All they can do is play chess and talk. Behind the chess board is practically their entire life, each figure begins to take on its deep significance. One, clever, brilliantly plays chess. The second - a fool who commits a great stupidity - writes about this book. It's a fool - Ruben. He sincerely believes that in war one must stand on the side of the weak and fight to the end. The one who fights on the side of the strong, has no chance. He is doomed to kill and serve his master forever.

If you are fighting on the side of those in power, then you have no chance of dying adequately with weapons in your hands. This is the main idea of this book. This is a book about a chess game with the devil, in which you can not win. The maximum that you can count on is to draw a tie. And the best deal with the devil is not to conclude at all.