Cela, Camilo José << THAY lah, kah MEE loh hoh SAY >> (1916-2002), a Spanish novelist, won the 1989 Nobel Prize for literature. The wide range of his work and his experiments in style and form made Cela a major influence on Spanish literature.
Cela was born on May 11, 1916, in Iria Flavia, Spain. His full name was Camilo José Cela Trulock. He gained immediate fame for his first novel, The Family of Pascal Duarte (1942). The novel is the fictional autobiography of a murderer awaiting execution. The book has been credited with introducing a style called tremendismo into Spanish literature. Tremendismo emphasizes pessimism and violence.
Cela solidified his reputation with his second novel, The Hive (1951), a realistic and satirical story of daily life in Madrid following the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Cela had fought in the war on the side of the rightist leader Francisco Franco, who came to power after the war as a dictator. Cela’s other novels include San Camilo, 1936 (1969), Mazurka for Two Dead People (1983), and Christ Versus Arizona (1988).
Cela wrote several acclaimed travel books, including Journey to the Alcarria (1948) and Jews, Moors, and Christians (1956). He also wrote essays, memoirs, and poetry. Cela edited a respected literary journal from 1956 to 1979, and in 1968 he began compiling a multivolume dictionary of Spanish words and phrases. His short stories were collected in The Windmill and Other Short Fiction (1956). Cela died on Jan. 17, 2002.
