Celestino Fernández de la Vega was a Galician essayist born in Friol, Lugo in 1914.
He collaborated in different publications such as Faro de Vigo, La Voz de Galicia, La Noche or El Progreso.
Together with Domingo García Sabell, Rof Carballo, Ramón Piñeiro and Carballo Calero, among others, he was part of the movement of new Galician essayism, which in the fifties became known with the publication of monographic works carried out around Rosalía de Castro and other Galician authors.
Fernández de la Vega approached the philosophical thought of Heidegger, of which he became a deep acquaintance. To him we owe the translations of Da essence gives truth, of that author, and Songbook of Celtic poetry, of Pokorny.
The work that revealed the true dimension of the writer was O segredo do humor (The Secret of Humor), published in 1963.
Celestino focused his efforts on highlighting the modern spirit of the three fundamental characteristics of being Galician: nostalgia, feeling for the landscape and humour.
As a curiosity, during the second half of the 20th century, in Lugo a phrase was used to express the failure of a public act: “No Celestino was there”. The person referred to is, of course, Celestino Fernández de la Vega himself, who, accompanied by his wife María Luisa Maceda, attends every cultural event in the city, his absence was a symptom that something very serious was happening, or to him, or to the act
Correos, within the Literature philatelic series, issues a stamp dedicated to this master of Galician letters and thought.
The stamp includes a close-up portrait of the author, on a background that represents the geographical outline of Galicia decorated with letters and the color blue, so representative of that land.
