Foundation to preserve Graves home in Deyá

Staff Reporter THE family of the writer Robert Graves (1895-1985), the Balearic government and Deyá town council signed an agreement yesterday, to set up of a Foundation which will buy, and convert into a museum, the house that Graves built in Deyá, where he lived for nearly half a century. William Graves, one of the author's sons, represented his family. Also present were the head of the Balearic government, Jaume Matas; the minister of Education and Culture, Francesc Fiol; and the mayor of Deyá, Jaume Crespí. The Robert Graves Foundation of the Balearics, which will collaborate with the Oxford University society dedicated to the author, will have an initial capital of 60'000 euros from the government. It has a commitment to acquire Can Alluny, the Deyá home of the author, before February 2005. The property, which the Balearic government will buy from the family for the Foundation, will be decorated with the furniture and artefacts with which Graves bestowed it during the time he was living there. It will exhibit part of his bibliographical legacy and will house the printing press with which he published books of his own poems, and works of the American poet Laura Riding, who will also have a corner in the centre. “It is worth it” assured Jaume Matas in relation to the estimated investment that the project will require. He pointed out that the Robert Graves Foundation has as its objectives “the conservation and consolidation of a legacy that should be given as wide a public focus as possible”. The Foundation wants to ensure that the memory of the writer “remains very much a living one” amongst visitors to the island as well as its residents, many of whom still remember “don Roberto,” as he was known locally, with affection. Matas pointed out that the creation of the museum will provide Deyá with a very attractive feature, where readers of Graves's works will have the opportunity of getting to know the surroundings he loved so much and which, furthermore, were reflected to an important extent in his work. “The passion between Graves and Majorca was reciprocal” emphasized Matas. He spoke of how the writer had originally come to the island in 1929, left as a consequence of the Civil War in 1936 but returned in 1946 and died here in December of 1985 aged 90. William Graves expressed the satisfaction of the Graves' heirs, as the agreement guarantees the conservation and promotion of their father's legacy. He added that Can Alluny was already decorated with the furniture it had in the 1950s, and the family was committed to recover everything that would help recreate the surroundings in which Graves wrote some of his best works. As to the Foundation's publishing plans, William Graves said that there were “some projects,” as yet undefined, to translates the poems of Robert Graves. The author is well known in Spain for his historical novels but his facet as poet is still relatively unknown.