Domingo Villar faces a moment of fragility between life and breath. The Spanish writer from Vigo was placed in the intensive care unit of Álvaro Cunqueiro Hospital in recent hours, lingering in a coma after experiencing a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a bleed that takes place in the space surrounding the brain.
Usually based in Madrid, Villar was back in his hometown tending to his mother when the medical emergency struck. He was transported by ambulance to Beade Hospital Center around 5 o’clock in the morning, and his condition has become a focal point of concern for readers and fellow writers alike.
Born in 1971, Villar stands as a central figure in the Galician novel movement, famed for the Inspector Leo Caldas series. The trilogy typically celebrated here includes Water Pots, The Drowned Coast, and The Last Boat, each set against the Vigo estuary and its surrounding region, weaving crime with the atmosphere of the Rías and the rhythm of coastal life.
In a contemporary interview with Faro on the occasion of his recognition as a Vigués Elite, Villar described how the city of Vigo, its restless estuary, its climate, and the dual character of being both rural and urban at once create a distinctive canvas for his writing. The borderland mood he mentions reflects how the local landscape informs the narratives about crime, memory, and identity in his work.