Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (
June 13,
1910 -
January 27,
1999) was a
Galician writer. He was born in
Ferrol and received his first education there, subsequently attending the universities of
Santiago de Compostela and
Oviedo. Although primarily a
novelist, he also published journalism, essays, and plays. His career as a writer began in
Oviedo, but developed largely in
Madrid. After moving around frequently in the later
1920s and early
1930s, including a period in
Paris, he returned to
Spain and linked himself to
Franco's
Falange party in order to save his own life and that of his family. His first novel,
Javier Mariño, appeared in
1943, and he continued to publish novels almost until his death, receiving major prizes for some of them.
Despite his affiliation to the Falangists, Torrente Ballester always promoted relatively leftist ideas, and from
1939, when he returned to Santiago to take up a university post, he increasingly distanced himself from the party. He joined in protests in favour of striking
Asturian miners in
1962, and was expelled from his teaching post at the university as a result. In the mid-
1960s he had a number of problems with government censors. He left Spain for a post at the
State University of New York at Albany in
1966, and remained there until
1970. After his return to
Spain, he was increasingly celebrated: In 1975 he was elected member of the
Real Academia Española, and was awarded the premier Spanish literary prize, the
Cervantes Prize, in
1985.
Immediately after his death a foundation was set up to protect, study and disseminate his work. The name of this foundation is
Fundación Gonzalo Torrente Ballester and counts among its supporters the
Royal House of Spain.
*Javier Mariño (1943)
*El golpe de estado de Guadalupe Limón (1946)
*Ifigenia (1950)
*El Señor llega (1957) - Novel prize of the
Fundación Juan March*Donde da la vuelta el aire (1960)
*La Pascua triste (1962)
*Don Juan (1963)
*Off-Side (1968)
*La Saga/Fuga de J.B. (1972) - Critics' Prize and City of Barcelona Prize
*Fragmentos de Apocalipsis (1977)
*La isla de los jacintos cortados (1980) - National Literature Prize
*Dafne y ensueños (1982)
*Quizá nos lleve el viento al infinito (1984)
*La princesa durmiente va a la escuela (1985)
*La rosa de los vientos (1985)
*Yo no soy yo, evidentemente (1987)
*Filomeno, a mi pesar (1988) - Planet Prize
*Crónica del rey pasmado (1989)
*Las islas extraordinarias (1991)
*La muerte del decano (1992)
*La novela de Pepe Ansúrez (1994)
*La boda de Chon Recalde (1995)
*Los años indecisos (1997)
*Doménica (1999)
*
A privately maintained site giving biographical and bibliographical material about Torrente Ballester and a good collection of images
*
Site about Torrente Ballester maintained by Ferrol municipality, in Spanish and Galician.
