Juan Marse

Juan Marsé was a Spanish novelist, journalist, and screenwriter who used Spanish as his literary language. He was one of the most respected and influential writers of the 20th century in Spain, and the winner of the 2008 Cervantes Prize, the highest literary honor in the Spanish-speaking world. Marsé was born Juan Faneca Roca in Barcelona in 1933. His biological mother died in childbirth, and he was soon adopted by a family of small farmers from southern Catalonia, who gave him the name Juan Marsé Carbó. He grew up in a poor neighborhood of Barcelona, where he witnessed the social and political aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. He left school at the age of 14 and started working as a jewelry apprentice. He also developed a passion for literature and cinema, and began writing stories for magazines. In 1958, he published his first novel, Encerrados con un solo juguete (Locked up with a Single Toy), which was a finalist for the Biblioteca Breve Seix Barral Prize. He then spent two years in Paris, working at the Pasteur Institute and teaching Spanish. He returned to Spain and wrote Esta cara de la luna (This Side of the Moon), which he later disowned. In 1965, he won the Biblioteca Breve Prize with Últimas tardes con Teresa (Last Evenings with Teresa), his most famous novel, which depicts the clash between a working-class migrant and an upper-class student in post-war Barcelona. Marsé married Joaquina Hoyas in 1966 and had two children, Alejandro and Berta, who also became a novelist. He worked in advertising and wrote dialogues for films, as well as columns for newspapers and magazines. He wrote several other novels that explore the themes of memory, identity, class, and sexuality in contemporary Spain, such as La oscura historia de la prima Montse (The Dark Story of Cousin Montse), Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell), La muchacha de las bragas de oro (Girl with Golden Panties), Un día volveré (One Day I'll Come Back), Ronda del Guinardó (Guinardó Boulevard), El amante bilingüe (The Bilingual Lover), El embrujo de Shanghai (The Shanghai Spell), Rabos de lagartija (Lizard Tails), Caligrafía de los sueños (The Calligraphy of Dreams), and Noticias felices en aviones de papel (Happy News in Paper Planes). Marsé received numerous awards and honors for his literary work, including the Planeta Prize, the Ateneo de Sevilla Prize, the Critics' Prize, the Aristeion Prize, the Juan Rulfo Prize, and the Cervantes Prize. He was also a member of the Royal Spanish Academy since 2006. He died of heart failure in Barcelona on 18 July 2020, at the age of 87. His novels have been translated into many languages and adapted into films and theater plays. He is widely regarded as one of the most important voices of Spanish literature and culture.