Camilo José Cela Trulock was born in the Galician village of Iria Flavia in Padrón, on May 11th, 1916. In 1942, he started his literary career by publishing his first novel La familia de Pascual Duarte (‘The Family of Pascual Duarte’). Later on, he published another thirteen novels until Madera de boj (‘Boxwood’, 1999). After La familia de Pascual Duarte, his work La colmena (‘The Hive’) stands out, published in 1951 in Buenos Aires due to censorship.
In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his rich and intense prose which with restrained compassion, forms a challenging vision of man’s vulnerability". Two years earlier, he was awarded the Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, and six years later he received the greatest award for Literature: the Premio Cervantes.
CJC worked with all literary genres and reached a total of 120 works published in his lifetime: 14 novels, 8 short novels, 5 poetry books, 17 travel books, 20 article collections, 26 story books, 3 plays, a romance de ciego ("blindman's ballad"), 5 adaptations, 2 interview books, 13 books on varied topics, a book on lexicography, 3 dictionaries and 2 memoirs: La rosa (The Rose; childhood memories) and Memorias, entendimientos y voluntades (Memories, Perceptions and Wills; youth memories). He was also a journalist, essayist, publisher of literary magazines, lecturer, painter, actor and much more.
In 1956, he set up and managed from Mallorca (in the Balearic Islands) the literary creation magazine Papeles de Son Armadans (‘’Papers of Son Armadans’’), an essential magazine to understand Spanish post-war literature, that remained active until 1979. 276 editions were published throughout its 23 years of activity.
In 1957, with the support of writers Vicente Aleixandre, Gregorio Marañón and Joaquín Calvo-Sotelo, he joined the Real Academia Española where he was given Seat Q. His entrance speech, La obra literaria del pintor Solana (‘’The Literary Work of the painter Solana’’), was answered by writer and doctor Gregorio Marañón himself.
In 1977, King Juan Carlos I appointed him as a senator to the first Cortes Generales (the Spanish Parliament) in the transition to democracy, and he took part in the drafting of the text of the 1978 Constitution.
He was awarded 25 honorary degrees by 16 different countries from 4 continents, and his work was published and translated into more than 40 languages. In fact, according to many specialists La familia de Pascual Duarte (‘’The Family of Pascual Duarte’’) is considered the most published and translated Spanish novel after El Quijote .
He died in Madrid on January 17th, 2002, at the age of 85. His legacy is preserved at the Foundation that bears his name in Iria Flavia.
