After two years of the pandemic, the Francisco Umbral Columnism Award for young writers has returned. Majadahonda 2022. The contest aims to reward and promote the creative writing of a journalistic text among students -about 500- in the columnism workshops “Dare to cross the Umbr@l 3.0”, taught by the writer and journalist Santiago Molina , offered by the Francisco Umbral Foundation with the support of the Majadahonda City Council.
The intentions are clear: on the one hand, to bring the work, the work and the figure of the author of Mortal y rosa closer to young audiences and, on the other, to teach students the secrets of the column.
In this new edition, nearly 100 texts from as many Baccalaureate students were presented. Among all of them, Diego Apesteguia Castro was the winner, for his article Theory on social props, from the Carlos Bousoño High School in Majadahonda.
The finalists of this call were Lucía de Pablo Marsal (Las Reparadoras School) for Hate Sundays, and Carlos Reñones Salazar (San Jaime School) for I have good news. Columns as striking as The Bad Fame of Reading by Noelia María Moreno remained at the gates; The need for moral rules by Laura Sacristán; Exploration through the jungle by Cristina García Espinosa; Fear of Existing by Sofía Ruiz; Evil of many consolation of fools by Aroa Gutiérrez; The life of Astrid Carbajal, and The new normality of Andrea Eloísa Flores.
This year’s awards ceremony was attended by the president of the Francisco Umbral Foundation, España Suárez, and the mayor of Majadahonda, José Luis Álvarez Ustarroz. Minutes before, the CB Theater company made a dramatized reading based on the book The friendship of two giants, where the correspondence between Francisco Umbral and Miguel Delibes, maintained for almost fifty years, is addressed.
A few months ago I began to go through the Moncloa station daily and, consequently, to move between islands to reach my goal, which meant that on that route that consisted of going from one bus to another I had to continuously dodge silhouettes to be able to reach my destination. These silhouettes (people), distributed en masse along the corridors, move agilely expressing an apparent hurry, through sudden movements, making it seem as if every day they had the job interview of their lives or the decisive exam on which it depends. his hopeful (but false) future.
This situation led me to develop a way to not have to collide with people who seem to be in a hurry to get to a certain place. In other words, it consists of a method to avoid being interrupted in transit to your destination, based on following a straight line and lavish apparent security, which makes people respect your path. The idea of the straight line was not invented by me, far from it, but what I have done is theorize and come to the conclusion that, from an illogical and somewhat conspiracy point of view, (but funny, which is important thing) these people are simply social props. However, so that I am not accused of being crazy, I will say that not everything is so drastic, since these come to life as soon as you leave Moncloa or any other station, so the real problem is the setting, in which they become props and this is created by a society, which, surely, if it were observed in a similar situation externally, one could come to think that there is no longer a solution for the human being. In conclusion, from now on, when you are about to embark on the forced task of reaching your bus line, be aware and put into practice looking ahead and following a line that interrupts the scripts imposed by the rest and, if possible, don’t let it make you forget yours.
Diego Apesteguia Castro. First year of Baccalaureate CIES Carlos Bousoño, Majadahonda.
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