Ruben Gallego is a famous writer and journalist born in the Soviet Union. The autobiographical novel White on Black brought him fame. For him he received a prestigious literary award - "Booker - Open Russia".
Parents of the writer
Ruben Gallego was born in Moscow in 1968. His biography is really amazing. Ruben's parents met at Lomonosov Moscow State University. His father came to the USSR to study from South America. He was a Venezuelan. In the capital of the Soviet Union, he comprehended 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 Secretary General of the Spanish Communist Party. After graduating from the philological faculty of Moscow State University, Aurora worked as a translator and journalist, collaborated with the international independent radio station Radio Liberty. Her relationship with Ruben's father was not long-term.
In 1974, she married writer and journalist Sergei Yurenen, who had just emigrated to the West in those years. They worked together on Radio Liberty. The couple broke up in 1998, after 24 years of marriage.
Scary diagnosis
Ruben Gonzalez Gallego received a terrible diagnosis from doctors even at birth. The child was almost completely paralyzed. Doctors put him in cerebral palsy.
When Ruben was one and a half years old, his mother was informed that he had died. In fact, the baby was sent to a home for disabled children. In the Soviet Union, this was so often done with hopelessly sick babies.
As a result, Ruben Gallego spent his entire childhood wandering from one orphanage to another. And these were not only children's homes, but also nursing homes. The young boy visited the town of Pasha, Leningrad Region, Nizhny Lomov near Penza, Novocherkassk, a boarding school in Trubchevsk in the Bryansk region.
In all these social institutions, even basic medical care was often not provided, not to mention the fact that a patient with a diagnosis such as Gallego needs specific treatment and care.
In Nizhny Lomovsk, teachers recalled that Ruben Gallego did not yet know how to write, but he 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 talked to him even in childhood admitted that the boy’s brain was arranged in a special way. He was a real walking encyclopedia. I read all the books several times that I found in local libraries at orphanages and nursing homes.
Love of life
Only the love of life, like the heroes of the Jack London story of the same name, saved Gallego from quick death and living in boarding schools for hopelessly sick people. Ruben David Gonzalez Gallego constantly sought to self-education, dreamed of breaking out of this environment.
As a result, he managed the almost impossible. He received secondary education and entered the commercial and technical college 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 first met at a conscious age with his mother. Remained to live with her in Prague. After that, he began traveling around Europe and the world. He lived in German Freiburg, Spanish Madrid. In the mid-2000s he left for the USA.
In 2011, a misfortune happened to him in America, which almost led to a tragedy. Ruben David Gallego, along with the wheelchair in which he was sitting, fell on the subway tracks in Washington. The writer was hospitalized, spent almost a month in an unconscious state. Readers and fans of his talent from around the world raised money to help him recover. Moreover, many were accompanied by 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 his senses.
Now lives in Israel. 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 written by Ruben Gallego is 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 talks about his life in Soviet orphanages. Severely ill children, such as Gallego, in these social institutions had a hard time. The narrative is vivid, memorable, shocking in places with its frankness and with how it was really arranged and what were the orders in such institutions.
After publication in Russia, the book was translated into dozens of world languages. The play based on Gallego’s novel was staged by Marina Brusnikina at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater. In 2009, another embodiment of the novel on stage was carried out by the director of the Oryol Drama Theater Gennady Trostyanetsky.
For those who care
We can say with confidence that the novel "White on Black" will not leave anyone indifferent, therefore this is a novel for everyone. Ruben Gallego, whose biography could become the basis of the script of some life-affirming Hollywood film (or maybe it 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 confined to wheelchairs or beds. The staff at these facilities is neglected. The nannies are constantly angry at them, cursing and calling names, knowing that these children have no one who could help or protect them. Teachers were in these specialized orphanages. Only they constantly talked about the great Land of Soviets and its wise leaders, practically giving no other knowledge. Although, of course, there were exceptions.
The situation in orphanages
Ruben Gallego, whose books are imbued with sincerity, describes in detail the state of affairs in Soviet orphanages. Readers will find out which institutions can be considered good and which can be considered bad orphanages.
A good one is one in which the basic necessary conditions for life are provided. Heat, 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 have the opportunity to develop legs if he has no hands, and vice versa. Moreover, the main thing that must always be done is to develop your head. Engage in self-education.
A big role in orphanages is played by teachers. Moreover, 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 redundant in society.
The story of the hero
It is worth noting that Gallego’s novel is absolutely true and autobiographical. Everything that is stated on its pages is true. Every story is real, every episode.
Moreover, White on Black is not a classic documentary. If it were such, dozens of real criminal cases could have been brought up according to the events set forth in it. Because the actions that the nannies and the nursing staff commit, often fit, at best, under the definition of "negligence." But Gallego, describing all these horrors, does not give names and dates. Although, of course, he remembers them.
His main goal is to write a novel about the Hero. The man who defeated this system against all odds.
