otros aires (1928-1936)

In the summer of 1928, his mother, Doña Amparo Bidón dies. Cernuda decided to leave Seville and start a new life. His first steps will take him to Malaga, where he met with Manuel Altolaguirre, Emilio Prados and José María Hinojosa. He then went to Madrid, where he met Vicente Aleixandre, and to Toulouse, where through Salinas’ recommendation, he obtained a job as lecteur in l'Ecole Normale. The reading of Gide’s works and the seven months spent in France helped the young poet to reconcile with his homosexuality. Moreover, in June 1929 when he returned to Madrid, he brought with him some poems of his first surreal book, Un río, un amor. In early 1930, while Cernuda began to work in León Sánchez Cuesta´s bookshop, he supported various initiatives to launch a surrealist movement in Spain.

On April 14, 1931, the Second Republic was proclaimed. During that period, and perhaps due to his love affair with Serafin Fernández Ferro, Cernuda wrote Los placeres prohíbidos, a book of poems that celebrate homosexual love in terms that defy the rigid morals of the time. The end of this relationship seems to have also inspired the desolate poems of Donde habite el olvido, some of which appeared in Héroe (1932-1933), a magazine published by Manuel Altolaguirre and Concha Méndez in Madrid.

In the summer of 1934, Cernuda meets in Malaga with Bernabé Fernández- Canivell, Emilio Prados, Miguel Prieto, and the brothers Dario and Gerardo Carmona. The pleasant stay was the source of inspiration of the first poems of Invocaciones (1934-1935), a book that recreates the myth of the Andalusian sea and land.