CAMILO JOSÉ CELA: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE AND COMPLETE WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Camilo José Cela (1916-2002) was a Spanish narrator, poet and academic, a native of La Coruña, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989 for his career. He stood out for addressing different literary genres.

He was the author of novels, short stories, travel books, essays, newspaper articles, plays and poems within the modernist current. He even wrote a screenplay for the movies. He was also the founder of the literary magazine Papeles de Son Armadans in the 1950s, as well as the Alfaguara publishing house.

Camilo José Cela. Source: Ricardoasensio, from Wikimedia Commons

Within his narrative work, the novels La familia de Pascual Duarte and La colmena stand out, in which he elaborated a critical, crude and spontaneous portrait of postwar Spanish society, developing a literary style that became known as “tremendismo”.

In addition to the Nobel Prize for Literature, he received the Prince of Asturias Prize for literature in 1987 and the Cervantes Prize in 1995. He was also appointed a member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language in 1957, among many other awards.

Biography

Birth and family

Camilo José Cela Turlock was born on May 11, 1916 in Iria Flavia, a parish in the province of La Coruña, Spain. He was baptized in the Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor.

He was the first child of the marriage formed by Camilo Crisanto Cela y Fernández and Camila Emanuela Trulock and Bertorini. Both parents were Galician by birth, although the mother was of British and Italian descent. Camila was the daughter of Jonh Trulock, manager of the first railway line in Galicia.

Childhood and early studies

Until 1925 the family lived in Vigo, where the author's childhood passed. In that year they moved to Madrid, where Camilo José was enrolled in the Piarist school on Polier Street.

Later he studied at the Chamberí Maristas school and finally at the San Isidro Institute in Madrid, where he finally completed his secondary education in 1934.

An unexpected illness

In 1931 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and admitted to the Guadarrama Antituberculous Sanatorium, where he remained for long months at rest. During that period, he nurtured his intellectual activity with the reading of philosophical works by José Ortega y Gasset and other classic Hispanic authors.

His hospitalization in the sanatorium served as inspiration for the writing of Pabellón en reposo, one of the author's first novels, which narrates the experiences and reflections of seven patients in the pavilion of a hospital. It was published in 1943.

His meeting with Pedro Salinas

Monument to Camilo José Cela. Source: Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lmbuga), via Wikimedia Commons

After graduating from the University Bachelor of Science, he entered the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid. In his youth he attended as a listener to the contemporary literature classes taught by the poet Pedro Salinas at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the same university. Those classes, and the influence of the illustrious professor, turned his life towards literary work.

Pedro Salinas advised him on the writing of his first poems. Through Salinas, Camilo met important figures of the literary and intellectual environment who were in Madrid at that time.

Among the characters that Cela rubbed shoulders with at that time, the poet Miguel Hernández, the philosopher María Zambrano, the writer Max Aub and the philologist Alonso Zamora Vicente stood out. With the latter he established a lasting friendship.

Wounded during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War

In 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out and Camilo José Cela, of a right-wing tendency, joined the front as a soldier. He was injured and transferred to the hospital in Logroño, where the Medical Court declared him “totally useless” to continue serving in the military.

First works and political life in Madrid

In 1938 he wrote his first collection of poems, entitled Treading the doubtful light of day. For its part, Poems of a cruel adolescence, with a surrealist theme, was published in 1945. That same year, The Monastery and Words, the author's second book of poems, was published.

Once the Civil War ended, Camilo José Cela dropped out of Medicine and began attending some courses at the Law School.

However, in 1940 he began working in a textile industries office. For this reason, he left university studies and devoted himself to working and writing his first novel, entitled La familia de Pascual Duarte.

Relapse into tuberculosis and friendship with Rafael Ibáñez

In 1942 he relapsed from tuberculosis and again had to be admitted to the Hoyo de Manzanares Sanatorium. There he met the editor and printer of Burgos, Rafael Ibáñez de Aldecoa, through his sister, Felisa.

Ediciones Albecoa was in charge of editing and publishing, during that same year, La familia de Pascual Duarte. Simultaneously he wrote his second novel, Pabellón en reposo. Both works were censored in Madrid.

During these early years of the Franco dictatorship, he collaborated with the postwar press, with articles consistent with his right-wing political ideas. He entered the Madrid Investigation and Surveillance Police Corps as a censor and served in that position during 1943 and 1944.

First marriage and various publications

In 1944 he married María del Rosario Conde Picavea, a native of Guijón, who for many years collaborated with the writer in the transcription of his productions. From the marriage a son, Camilo José Arcadio Cela Conde, was born on January 17, 1946.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he published numerous short stories, short novels, and essays in Madrid newspapers of the time.

During those years, his first travel books also came to light, including Viaje a la Alcarria and Cuaderno del Guadarrama, all of them with descriptions of Spain.

Through those territories he made numerous trips throughout his life. He also continued in the 1950s with the writing of poems, compiled in various compilations.

Collaboration on his first film script

In 1949 he collaborated with the script for the film El sótano, directed by the San Sebastian filmmaker Jaime de Mayora Dutheil and produced by Augustus Films Studios in Madrid.

On the set he played one of the main protagonists, so he not only ventured into the world of cinema as a screenwriter, but also as an actor.

The basement was premiered at the Cine Coliseum on Gran Vía in Madrid, on January 12, 1950.

Publication of

In 1951, what for many critics was his top novel, La colmena, was published in Buenos Aires. This is because in Spain it was censored, both by the ecclesiastical institution and by the regime.

Camilo José Cela was working on this work from 1945 until its publication. In the Argentine capital it came to light through Emecé Editores, with the omission of some passages with explicit sexual content.

The novel was developed in Madrid in 1943, within the social context of the postwar period. It does not have a single protagonist, but it is about stories of different characters that are intertwined, with a modern and playful narrative. In 1955 La colmena was finally published in Spain.

Life in Palma de Mallorca, publishing career and works of maturity

In 1954, Camilo José Cela and his family moved to Palma de Mallorca, where the author lived until 1989. There he met the famous North American writer Ernest Hemingway, the Dada poet Tristan Tzara and many other characters.

Three years later, in 1957, he was elected to the Q chair as a member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language. The ceremony was held on May 27 of that year, with a memorable speech by Cela.

Agreement with Marcos Pérez Jiménez

In the 1950s, he agreed with the Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez to write five or six novels set in Venezuela.

Within the agreements, the works had to deal with propaganda passages of the government's policies of the president, especially those referring to immigration programs.

From this agreement, La catira was only published in 1955. This novel earned him the Critics' Prize for Castilian narrative the following year, as well as a large sum of money that he could invest in subsequent projects. That same year he also published the short novel El molino del viento.

Son Armadans Papers Foundation

In Mallorca he founded the magazine Papeles de Son Armadans in 1956, together with the writer José Manuel Caballero Bonald. For this project they had the collaboration of writers and intellectuals such as Gregorio Marañón, Dámaso Alonso, Alonso Zamora Vicente José María Castellet, among many others.

Papeles de Son Armadans circulated until March 1979. It was characterized by its pages accommodating Spanish writers exiled by the dictatorship, such as Rafael Alberti, Manuel Altolaguirre and Luis Cernuda, among others.

Camilo published texts in different languages, including Basque and Catalan. Also plastic artists such as Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Antoni Tàpies each had a number dedicated to their work.

In this magazine was published in 1962 Sheaf of Loveless Fables, a short novel by Cela that was illustrated by Picasso. New editions of Viaje a la Alcarria and La familia de Pascual Duarte were also published.

Foundation of the Alfaguara publishing house

In 1964 he founded the Alfaguara publishing house, in which he published many of his works and many others by Spanish writers of the time. Currently the publisher is part of the Santillana group. That same year he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Syracuse, United States.

In 1969 he published Vespers, festivity and octave of San Camilo in 1936, in Madrid, known simply as San Camilo, 1936. This was another highly relevant work in his career, mainly due to his narrative. It was written as a long interior monologue.

Death of Franco and appointment as senator

In the 1970s, with the death of the Spanish head of government, Francisco Franco, and the end of the dictatorship, he returned to public office within the democratic transition. He was elected senator of the first democratic courts, since he held between 1977 and 1979.

Among its functions was the revision of the constitutional text drawn up by the Council of Deputies, in which Spanish was designated as the official language in Spain.

During these years he also headed the Spain-Israel Friendship Society, which was in charge of promoting cultural exchange and diplomatic relations between the two countries. She also continued with her literary work, with the publication of compilations of stories and novels.

Awards and honours

In 1980 he was elected a member of the Royal Galician Academy. Four years later, in 1984, he was awarded the National Narrative Prize in Spain for his novel Mazurca para dos muertos, one of the most important recognitions in this country.

In 1987 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, a year earlier he had received the Sant Jordi Award. In 1988, one of the most commented texts of his maturity was published, the novel Cristo versus Arizona, which narrated the armed confrontation of OK Corral, which occurred in the United States in 1881, through a long prayer without interruptions until its final point.

Finally, in 1989, after several years as a strong candidate for the award, the Swedish Academy honored him with the Nobel Prize for Literature for his rich career as a storyteller and poet.

Divorce and second marriage

That year he also separated from his first wife, María del Rosario Conde, from whom he officially divorced in 1990. In 1991 he married the journalist Marina Castaño López.

With the novel La cruz de San Andrés, Cela won the Planeta Prize in 1994. The following year the Ministry of Culture of her native country awarded her the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Spain.

On May 17, 1996, King Juan Carlos I granted him the noble title of Marqués de Iria Flavia, in recognition of his contribution to the Spanish language and culture. On this same date, Cela turned 80 years old.

Death

Tomb of Camilo José Cela. Source: Dodro, from Wikimedia Commons

On January 17, 2002, at the age of 85, he died in Madrid, as a result of pulmonary and heart complications. His body was transferred to Iria Flavia and veiled at the headquarters of the Galician Public Foundation Camilo José Cela. He was buried in the Adina cemetery, in his place of birth.

Style

His narrative style was eclectic and different in each of his works. In some of his early novels, such as La familia de Pascual Duarte and La colmena, he used elements of naturalism. However, he also added rawness, eroticism and violence in a spontaneous way, both in the events and in the language.

The two novels mentioned, like many other stories by the author, are set in Spanish cities during the Civil War, immediately before or in the years that followed it.

Nothing is adorned or omitted in the description of the situations and characters. This narrative style is known by the name of "tremendismo", although the same author denied that his works were qualified with this term.

He also cultivated the experimental narrative in other stories such as San Camilo, 1936 and Cristo versus Arizona, with the deliberate omission of punctuation marks, the use of interior monologues and other resources, always using a crude and bitter lexicon.

As a poet, he devoted himself to both the surrealist style and the writing of romances with modernist influences. He was a voracious and analytical reader. In his facet as an essayist and literary critic, the carefree and scathing attitude that characterized him was reflected.

Complete works

Camilo José Cela was an extremely prolific author, whose literary work exceeds one hundred publications in his lifetime. It has collections of poems, novels, various stories, story books, newspaper articles, essays, travel books, memoirs, plays for theater, lexicology books and a screenplay for movies.

Most important novels

- The family of Pascual Duarte (1942).

- Rest Pavilion (1943).

- New adventures and misadventures of Lazarillo de Tormes (1944).

- The beehive (1951).

- Mrs Caldwell talks to her son (1953).

- La catira, Histories of Venezuela (1955).

- Slide of the hungry (1962).

- San Camilo, 1936 (1969).

- Office of Darkness 5 (1973).

- Mazurca for two dead (1983).

- Christ versus Arizona (1988).

- The murder of the loser (1994).

- The cross of San Andrés (1994).

- Boxwood (1999).

Short novels, fables and stories

- Those clouds that pass (1945).

- The beautiful crime of the carabinero and other inventions (1947).

- The Galician and his gang and other carpetovetonic notes (1949).

- Santa Balbina 37, gas on each floor (1951).

- Timothy the misunderstood (1952).

- Artists' café and other stories (1953).

- Deck of inventions (1953).

- Dreams and figurations (1954).

- The windmill and other short novels (1956).

- New altarpiece of Don Cristobita. Inventions, figurations and hallucinations (1957).

- Stories from Spain. The blind. The Fools (1958).

- The old friends (1960).

- Sheaf of Loveless Fables (1962).

- The loner and the dreams of Quesada (1963).

- Bullfighting (1963).

- Eleven football stories (1963).

- Hoists, tail and colipoterras. Drama accompanied by joking and heart pain (1964).

- The hero's family (1964).

- New Matritenses scenes (1965).

- The citizen Iscariote Reclús (1965).

- The flock of pigeons (1970).

- The stain in the heart and eyes (1971).

- Five glosses and many other truths about the silhouette that a man drew about himself (1971).

- Ballad of the unlucky tramp (1973).

- The oxidized tacatá (1974).

- Tales for after the bath (1974).

- Role of cuckolds (1976).

- The unusual and glorious feat of Archidona's cipote (1977).

- The mirror and other stories (1981).

- The ears of the child Raúl (1985).

- Vocation of delivery man (1985).

- Los Caprichos by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1989).

- The man and the sea (1990).

- Torerías (1991).

- Cachondeos, foreplay and other wiggles (1993).

- The chasm of the penultimate innocents (1993).

- La dama pájara and other stories (1994).

- Family stories (1999).

- Notebook from El Espinar. Twelve women with flowers on their heads (2002).

Poems

Plaque in the house of Camilo José Cela. Source: HombreDHojalata, from Wikimedia Commons

- Treading the doubtful light of day (1945).

- The monastery and the words (1945).

- Cancionero de la Alcarria (1948).

- Three Galician poems (1957).

- The true story of Gumersinda Costulluela, a girl who preferred death to disgrace (1959).

- Encarnación Toledano or the downfall of men (1959).

- Trip to the USA or the one who follows her kills her (1965).

- Two blind romances (1966).

- Hourglass, sundial, blood clock (1989).

- Complete poetry (1996).

Travel books

- Journey to the Alcarria (1948).

- Ávila (1952).

- From Miño to Bidasoa (1952).

- Guadarrama Notebook (1952).

- Vagabundo por Castilla (1955).

- Jews, Moors and Christians: Notes from a wandering around Ávila, Segovia and their lands (1956).

- First Andalusian trip (1959).

- Pages of errabunda geography (1965).

- Trip to the Pyrenees of Lleida (1965).

- Madrid. Camilo José Cela's street, maritime and country kaleidoscope for the Kingdom and Ultramar (1966).

- Barcelona. Camilo José Cela's street, maritime and country kaleidoscope for the Kingdom and Ultramar (1970).

- New trip to the Alcarria (1986).

- Galicia (1990).

Journalistic works, literary criticism and essays

Some of his works, among these prolific facets, are:

- Revolt table (1945).

- My favorite pages (1956).

- Tailor's box (1957).

- The literary work of the painter Solana (1957).

- Four figures from 98: Unamuno, Valle-Inclán, Baroja and Azorín (1961).

- The convenient companies and other pretenses and blinds (1963).

- Ten artists from the Mallorca school (1963).

- At the service of something (1969).

- The ball of the world. Everyday scenes (1972).

- Photographs to the minute (1972).

- The vain dreams, the curious angels (1979).

- The communicating vessels (1981).

- Reading of Don Quixote (1981).

- The game of the strawberry trees (1983).

- Buridan's donkey (1986).

- Spanish conversations (1987).

- Selected pages (1991).

- From the Hita loft (1991).

- The single chameleon (1992).

- The Egg of Judgment (1993).

- A boat soon (1994).

- The color of the morning (1996).

Other works

He wrote a memoir entitled La cucaña, the first part of which was published in 1959 and the second in 1993. In addition, he owes the script for the film El sótano (1949) and three plays: María Sabina (1967), Tribute a El Bosco, I (1969) and Homenaje a El Bosco, II (1999).

He was also the author of a few dictionaries and lexicology books: Secret dictionary. Volume 1 (1968), Secret Dictionary. Volume 2 (1971), Encyclopedia of eroticism (1976) and Popular Gazetteer of Spain (1998).

References

1. Camilo José Cela. (2018). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org
2. Camilo José Cela. (S. f.) (N / a): Biographies and Lives, the online biographical encyclopedia. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com
3. Camilo José Cela. (S. f.). Spain: Cervantes Virtual Center. Recovered from: cvc.cervantes.es
4. Biography. (S. f.). Spain: Galician Public Foundation Camilo José Cela. Recovered from: fundacioncela.gal
5. Cela Trulock, Camilo José. (S. f.). (N / a): Escritores.org. Recovered from: writers.org.