Juan Marichal (historian)

Juan Marichal (2 February 1922 – 9 August 2010) was a Spanish-Canarian historian, literary critic and essayist. Marichal also served as a professor at Harvard University. Marichal spent years in exile during the Francoist State following the end of the Spanish Civil War.[1]

Marichal was born on 2 February 1922 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.[1] He moved with his family to Madrid in 1935.[1] However, he soon relocated to both Valencia and Barcelona before attending school in Paris, France.[1] He graduated from the French lycée in Casablanca, near the end of the Spanish Civil War.[1]

In 1941, Marichal boarded a ship with other exiles from the Spanish Civil War and sailed from Casablanca to Mexico at just 19 years old.[1] He enrolled at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he studied literature and philosophy.[1] He worked at a box factory as a student to pay for his tuition.[2]

Marichal became a professor at Luis Vives Institute, an organization in Mexico founded by Spaniard exiles.[1] He moved to the United States, where he enrolled as a doctoral student at Princeton University due to a scholarship obtained for him by Edmundo O'Gorman, a Mexican historian and philosopher.[1] Marichal received his Ph.D. in modern languages and literature from Princeton University in 1949 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Feijoo y el ensayiamo hispanico."[1][3]

Marichal taught literature at Harvard University in Massachusetts after obtaining his doctorate, where his courses, which focused on Spain and the Spanish language, included El Cid.[1] He later spent more than 10 years writing his most famous work, The Complete Works of Manuel Azaña, a Spanish politician.[2] He also published the writings and works of his father-in-law, Spanish poet Pedro Salinas, Three Voices of Pedro Salinas, in 1976.[1][2] Marichal was a recipient of the Spain National Prize in Literature in 1996 for his work as a historian[1] and was awarded the Canary Prize for Literature in 1987.[2]

Juan Marichal died on 9 August 2010 at his home in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, at the age of 88.[1] His death was announced by the regional government of the Canary Islands. He was predeceased by his wife, Solita, the daughter of poet Pedro Salinas.[2] The couple had two sons, Miguel Marichal Salinas and Carlos Marichal Salinas.[2]