Considered as one of the great Spanish writers of the XNUMXth century, Miguel Delibes (Valladolid, 1920) dedicated a large part of his life to a work founded in postwar Spain to make the world aware of the consequences of consumerism and the suppression of certain universal ethical values. Eight years after his death, Delibes' novels continue to be fresh and necessary in a literary scene full of his lyrics, reflections and theatrical adaptations. Let's navigate the biography and best books of Miguel Delibes.
Biography of Miguel Delibes
Descendant of French and Spanish, Miguel Delibes was born in Valladolid where he attended high school until 1936. A childhood marked by their summers in the municipality of Molledo, in Cantabria, where her father was raised and whose quiet life would inspire the author's passion for hunting and nature, two recurring themes in his work. His entry into the adult world coincided with a Spanish Civil War that forced him to be part of the Mallorcan cruise ship where he worked as a volunteer before returning to Valladolid.
During this new stage, he managed to graduate from the School of Commerce and study Law, at the same time that his enrollment at the School of Arts and Crafts in Valladolid allowed him to be hired as a cartoonist in 1941 for the newspaper El Norte de Castilla. In 1946 he contracted marriage with Ángeles de Castro, to which he addressed on numerous occasions as "his greatest inspiration."
After stabilizing as a law professor, happy husband and father of a boy named Miguel, Delibes began writing his first work, The cypress shadow is elongated, a work for which he received the Nadal Prize in 1947, consolidating a career that was followed by other works such as Still is by Day, which was censored when it was published in 1949, or El camino, in 1952. A prolific time that coincided with the birth of his other three children: Ángeles , Germán and Elisa, in addition to his appointment as deputy director of El Norte de Castilla.
The 50s was one of the author's most prolific times, with the publication of other works such as My idolized son Sisí, The Game, Diary of a hunter (winner of the National Narrative Prize) or Diary of an emigrant, existentialist stories of the elderly. that start over or people marked by war. The birth of their fifth child, Juan, in 1956 and his appointment as director of El Norte de Castilla they would mark the finishing touch of a unique decade and the beginning of an even more promising one.
The 60s represented the heyday of Delibes as author, coinciding with the birth of his children Adolfo and Camino. Among his most outstanding works we find Las ratas, winner of the Critics' Prize or, especially, Five hours with Mario, considered his best book and first of a time of beginning after leaving El Norte de Castilla due to different disputes with Manuel Fraga and living for a time in the United States, where he worked as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland.
In the 70s, Delibes was named member of the Royal Spanish Academy and the Hispanic Society of American, acknowledgments blurred by the death of his wife Ángeles in 1974, an event that would mark a before and after in the author's life. The following years were marked by the different film and theater adaptations of his works, with the theatrical version of Five Hours with Mario starring Lola Herrera being a success at the end of the 70s.
The 80s would mean the consolidation of his career with the publication of works such as The Holy Innocents or recognitions such as the Prince of Asturias Award. Delibes' work became an important literary reference not only in Spain, but on the other side of the Atlantic, exporting the voice of an author whose twilight would arrive in 1998, the year in which he was diagnosed with colon cancer from which he did not arrive. to fully recover, this being the cause of his death on March 12, 2010.
Best books by Miguel Delibes
The shade of the cypress is elongated
Winner of the Nadal Prize in 1947, The shade of the cypress is elongated It represents the vitality clouded by turbulent times such as the postwar years in Spain. A lesson that we learn through its protagonist, the young orphan Pedro who is educated by the sinister Don Mateo in the city of Ávila growing up under the belief that, to survive in life, it is necessary to get away from others and not show the least affection or sentimentality for other people.
The rats
Published in 1962 and Critics Award winner one year later,The rats is a clear denounces the latifundio, or the tendency by wealthy lords to exploit large tracts of land using locals who work in their service. A situation covered in the book by the boy known as El Nini, a young man whom everyone turns to for advice given his abilities to read nature and the world in a town plagued by misery to which great social gaps lead.
Five hours with Mario
Delibes undisputed masterpiece, Five hours with Mario, published in 1966, narrates the five hours a woman spends watching over her husband's corpse in a room with a bedside table displaying a copy of the Bible with several underlined paragraphs. The perfect framework for the reflection of a wife who recalls her life, her mistakes and impressions resulting in a unique x-ray of life, society and injustices of the twentieth century in Spain. The play was adapted to the theater on several occasions and served as inspiration for Paco León in the film Carmina y amen.
The holy innocents
Published in 1981, The holy innocents was considered one of the "100 best novels in Spanish" by El Mundo taking into account its great potential as a work that denounces the social inequalities of that hierarchical Spain of the XNUMXth century. Set in a farmhouse in Extremadura, the novel narrates the problems faced by the family formed by Régula, Paco and their four children, all of them workers of the lords of a property that draws the oppression and contempt of an era.
The heretic
The last great work of Delibes It was published in 1998 and is a clear tribute to his native Valladolid in the times of Carlos V, in the XNUMXth century. A time when freedom of thought was marked by Luther's Reformation Seen through the eyes of the merchant Cipriano Salcedo. A novel that, despite moving away in time, pursues the same intention as other of his many works: the loneliness, love and reflection of those who dare to be free in an imposed world.
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