[1] Moreover, he was president of the Hispanic Cultural Foundation in the United States and was in possession of the Commandery of the Order of Isabel the Catholic and the Civil Merit in the degree of Number granted by the King of Spain.
))[2] Odón Betanzos Palacios was born in Rociana del Condado, in the province of Huelva, Andalusia, Spain,[2][5] on September 16,[5] 1925.
[1][2][5] His father was Manuel (Manolo) Betanzos Valencia, and his mother was Caridad Palacios Urquijo, a descendant of an aristocratic Basque family.
The first one was to keep the accounting of a furniture store, while managing it on Calle Valverde, owned by a family friend of his mother – Caledonian Hernandez -a "good and fair man" who helped him a lot during those years of loneliness, anxiety, hunger and misery.
Since he didn't make enough money by working at this job, he set up a stationery along with a Basque man- Aldamiz – but the experience would be short – just a few months – because of the many difficulties involved in the business at the time.
Among the many difficulties a new one was added: Caledonian Hernandez died and the business disappeared with his death, which meant that Odon lost his job and became wrapped in a sea of confusion.
[1] He died in New York on September 24, 2007, due to heart disease and cancer with which he had been suffering for some years, and he was buried a week later in his hometown in Spain, in Rociana's San Fernando Cemetery, in the family pantheon alongside his only son, Manny.
The president of the Betanzos Foundation, Antonio Ramírez, said the writer died in a New York City hospital after several days of agony.
[1][5] It was in 1952 during one of his trips to New York that he met a woman from Bronx who would become his wife, Amalia Migues, the only daughter of a Spaniard – from Pontevedra, Galicia, who emigrated to America as a child – and of a Puerto Rican mother, from Santurce.
Manny wasn't only of high moral integrity and values, but he was also friendly, kind, intelligent, enthusiastic, thoughtful, very generous, and with a wonderful sense of humor.
An avid reader, he was a marvelous son and an amazing person who studied literature, history, and social work at college as well as law.
[5] Odon's father's capture and shooting during the Spanish Civil War, and then decades later, the death of his son, were both very heavy marks in the life of the author and of his literature.
[6] He received many awards throughout his life, among those: His works has been translated, at least in English, Portuguese, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Arabic, Hebrew and Macedonian.