José Antonio Luján Henríquez

Born on 8 October 1950 in a cave in Artenara, José Antonio Luján Henríquez tied his work to the highlands of Gran Canaria and to the municipality for which he served as official chronicler. Artenara's tourism biography presents him as a graduate in Philosophy and Letters from the University of La Laguna, a secondary-school teacher of Spanish language and literature, and Artenara's official chronicler.

His career combined teaching, local research, journalism and literary writing with a sustained focus on the cultural landscape of the highlands. He coordinated Crónicas de Canarias, the yearbook of the Board of Official Chroniclers of the Canary Islands, an association of which he was a founding member and president. He also belonged to the Instituto Canario de Estudios Históricos Rey Fernando Guanarteme, the Gran Canaria island heritage commission and the Canarian Writers' Association. From 1995 he wrote the Piedra Lunar column in LA PROVINCIA, a sequence of chronicles that he connected with the highlands, reality and dreams. His bibliography moved through Artenara's local history, Unamuno's presence in Gran Canaria, the island's literary landscape, toponymy, Lugarejos pottery and oral memory, with titles such as Aspectos Históricos de Artenara, La voz de la memoria and Tempestad de piedra.

After his death on 26 December 2025, LA PROVINCIA remembered him as Artenara's chronicler, a prose writer, columnist and teacher of Canarian identity. His legacy is more than a list of books: it remains in a way of reading Artenara as a key to the island, in the recovery of local voices and crafts, in the defence of historical heritage and in a style of writing that turned municipal chronicle into literature of landscape, memory and community. For Gran Canaria, he links the patient work of the chronicler with the sensibility of the teacher and writer who made the highlands a recognisable cultural space.