Federico García Sanchiz
Honors Federico García Sanchiz (1886-1964), a Valencian writer and member of the Royal Spanish Academy who spread the craft of the “charlista” on his tours across Spanish America.
Federico García Sanchiz (Valencia, 1886 - Madrid, 1964) was a writer and travel chronicler, though his fame came from a craft he claimed for himself: that of the charlista, the talk-giver. The talk sat halfway between a lecture and a monologue. He walked out alone onto the stage and held entire theaters hanging on his voice.
That art took him through the Spanish-speaking countries. He crossed the Atlantic again and again to speak before audiences across Spanish America, and from those tours he returned confirmed as a figure of the Hispanic world. That is why he fits this district, given over to the ties with Spanish America.
In 1941 he entered the Royal Spanish Academy. The word he championed is still in the dictionary, though the figure of the man who filled theaters with his conversation alone was left behind.