Spanish novelist, journalist and newspaper editor associated with the Generation of ’36 movement. From 1975 until his death, he was a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, where he occupied letter “e” seat. Educated in commerce, he began his career as a cartoonist and columnist. He later became the editor for the regional newspaper El Norte de Castilla before gradually devoting himself exclusively to writing novels.
He was a connoisseur of the flora and fauna of Castile and was passionate about hunting and the countryside. These were common themes in his writing, and he often wrote from the perspective of a city-dweller who remained connected with the rural world.
He was one of the leading figures of post-Civil War Spanish literature, winning numerous literary prizes. Several of his works have been adapted into plays or have been turned into films, winning awards at the Cannes Film Festival among others. He has been ranked with Heinrich Böll and Graham Greene as one of the most prominent Catholic writers of the second half of the twentieth century. He was deeply affected by the death of his wife in 1974.
He is the author of 50 books that have been translated into foreign languages. Miguel Delibes won the Spanish-speaking world’s top literary award, the Cervantes Prize, in 1993. He was proposed repeatedly as a candidate for the Nobel Prize.
Miguel Delibes died at his home in Valladolid early in the morning of 12 March 2010 at age 89 from colon cancer that was first diagnosed in 1998.
Link to Wikipedia biography