| Fernando Sánchez Dragó | |
| Birth Name: | Fernando Sánchez Dragó |
| Birth Date: | 2 October 1936 |
| Birth Place: | Madrid, Spain |
| Death Place: | Castilfrío de la Sierra, Spain |
| Education: | Colegio del Pilar University of Madrid |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Period: | 1950–2023 (writer) 1970s–2010s (television host) |
| Genre: | Novel, essay, autobiography, Travel book |
| Subject: | Travel, literature, culture |
| Awards: | Premio Planeta de Novela Premio Nacional de Ensayo (1979) Premio Planeta (1992) Premio Ondas |
Fernando Sánchez Dragó (2 October 1936 – 10 April 2023) was a Spanish writer and television host.
Fernando Sánchez Dragó was born in the Salamanca district of Madrid, the posthumous son of Fernando Sánchez Monreal, a journalist who was killed in the Spanish Civil War by the Francoist Nationalist faction. His father was director of the news agency Febus, as well as director of the agency Noti-Sport.[1] Sánchez was a student at the Colegio del Pilar and at the University of Madrid (now known as the Complutense). A member of the Communist Party of Spain in his youth, he was imprisoned because of his opposition to Francoist Spain and was in exile for seven years.
Sánchez Dragó participated along with other figures linked to Spanish Nouvelle Droite in the Manifesto Against the Death of the Spirit and the Earth in 2002, later forming the Asociación Manifiesto, a meeting point of old and new reactionaries as well as former neo-Nazi group CEDADE members.[2]
Labelled a "new reactionary", he however described himself as an individualist libertarian anarchist. The author of more than 45 books, he won the 1979 Premio Nacional de Ensayo for his essay Gárgoris y Habidis. Una historia mágica de España. This work has been criticised because of its antisemitic content,[3] mostly attacking Ashkenazi Jews.[4]
Sánchez Dragó also won the 1992 Premio Planeta for his novel La prueba del laberinto and the 2006 Fernando Lara Novel Award for his book based on the life and death of his father, Muertes paralelas.[5]
In a 2010 work entitled Dios los cría... y ellos hablan de sexo, drogas, España, corrupción..., Sánchez Dragó bragged about having had sex with two thirteen year-old minors during his time in Japan in 1967.[6] [7] [8] [9]
A noted endorsement in the meeting of the far-right political party Vox celebrated in the Palacio Vistalegre in October 2018, he vowed to support 90% of the party political programme.[10] [11]
Sánchez Dragó died on 10 April 2023, at age 86, after suffering a heart attack at his residence in Castilfrío de la Sierra.[12]