Fernando Sánchez Dragó

Over the history many personalities have made the pilgrimage to Santiago, among them is the Spanish writer and essayist Fernando Sánchez Dragó, who drove his Citröen along the route from October through December of 1971, while he was writing "Gárgoris y Habidis". When he finished the journey he promised himself to repeat it on foot because "in order to know it in depth you have to suffer from it", but he has not done so.

During the journey he collected data, stories, personal experiences, many of which were to be included in his popular work "Gárgoris y Habidis" -National Literary Award in 1979-, an essay with 30 editions.

This material and subsequent investigations are reflected in "Historia mágica del Camino de Santiago" (The Magic Story of the Way to Santiago), where he states that the way to Santiago is "the biggest lie ever made up by the Catholic Church concerning the Iberian Peninsula".

This book, says Sanchez Drago "tries to bring to light all the lies that seem to be true and rescue the truths that lie behind all the verbiage". Among all these supposed lies "we should mention the story about the Apostle Santiago, who was never in Spain, nor did he fight with the christian soldiers". The author states that the Church "has always used the Way as pure propaganda of its doctrine and with aims that many times are more material than spiritual".

For him "trickery is one of the most important leitmotifs of the Route". Among the truths that should be rescued is the spiritual search, a constant need: "as an interior journey, a search of oneself", says the author.

This critical and sometimes polemical writer has published many essays -where he always expresses his incisive opinions about the topics he writes about- and also many novels, among them the one mentioned above "Gárgoris y Habidis", "La España Mágica" (1983), "Del priscilianismo al liberalismo" (on bulls and bullfighting) (1987), "Discurso Numantino" (1995), "El Dorado" (1984), "El Camino del Corazón" (1990: finalist for the Planeta Award), "La Prueba del Laberinto" (1992: Planeta Award). 

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