The City Council of Alcalá de Henares has formally requested the Government of Spain that the original typescript of Camilo José Cela's famous novel 'The Hive', found by a researcher on September 29, remains in the 'complutense' city and does not leave the General Archive of the Administration (AGA), where it has been kept for eight decades. The Councillor for Culture, Santiago Alonso, has emphasized the historical and literary link of the Nobel laureate with Alcalá, where Cela received an honorary doctorate from the UAH in 1989 in recognition of his literary career. This unpublished version, now brought to light, constitutes the first complete installment of the work that would later become one of the cornerstones of Spanish post-war narrative. The document, a hundred typewritten pages with notes by Cela himself, was sent on January 7, 1946, to the Francoist censors, who banned it for 'attacking dogma and morality'. In his opinion, the document would reinforce the axis that connects the cradle of Miguel de Cervantes with the work of a 20th-century Nobel laureate, offering a unique space for the study of literature, censorship, and critical memory. The council is also concerned about the fate of the Archive of Spanish Literary Creation, which the Ministry of Culture acquired in 2010 from the agent Carmen Balcells. That year, 2,500 linear meters of material arrived at the General Archive of the Administration from Barcelona in several trailers: drawings by Alberti, documents by García Márquez, the archive of Paul Bowles—including scores from his youth as a musician (next to Manuel de Falla, for example)—and a vast multitude of papers and files. Alonso has appealed directly to the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, for the Government to 'act responsibly and sensitively' in deciding the manuscript's fate: 'We ask the minister to value the symbolism and academic projection of this legacy remaining in Alcalá.' The councillor has also recalled that the 'complutense' city has cultural infrastructures, technical capacity, and a solid academic network to guarantee the conservation and dissemination of the document. 'If Cervantes represents the origin of the modern novel and its consolidation in the 20th century by Cela, Alcalá is the point that connects them,' concluded Alonso.
