Ruben David Gonzalez Gallego (born 1968) was born in Moscow, Russia, with severe cerebral palsy.
Gallego was separated from his family at the age of one; he was sent to a state orphanage, because his grandfather, Ignacio Gallego, who was Secretary-General of the Spanish Communist Party, was ashamed of him and told his daughter (Ruben's mother) that her son had died.
Born without the use of his hands and feet, Ruben Gallego was tenacious and survived to adulthood, eventually marrying and having children. He lived in Russia and worked as a computer specialist until 2001, when he was reunited with his mother in Prague. Gallego lived in Freiburg, Germany, later moved to the United States. He now resides in Washington DC.
His memoir about his dreadful childhood in different Soviet orphanages, which won the Russian Booker Prize, was translated into English and published, in January 2006, as White on Black: A Boy's Story. An abridged version of the memoir was read on the Book of the Week programme on BBC Radio 4 in the week of March 20–24, 2006.
The book has also been translated into Vietnamese, Swedish (2005 by Ola Wallin, Ersatz) and Czech (2009 by Denisa Šťastná, Revolver Revue)
External links
- From victim to hero - book review published in The Guardian in January 2006.
The book has also been translated into Georgian (2009 by Nino Bekishvili)http://shokoladi.ge/node/2947
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