Francisco Ayala (novelist) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Excelentísimo Señor Don Francisco Ayala
Born	Francisco Ayala García-Duarte (1906-03-16)16 March 1906 Granada, Spain
Died	3 November 2009(2009-11-03) (aged 103) Madrid, Spain
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Spanish
Period	1925–2009
Seat Z of the Real Academia Española
In office 25 November 1984 – 3 November 2009
Preceded by	Salvador Fernández Ramírez [es]
Succeeded by	José Luis Gómez

Francisco Ayala García-Duarte (born March 16, 1906 – died November 3, 2009) was a famous Spanish writer. He was the last living member of a special group of writers called the Generation of '27. This group included many important Spanish authors and poets from the 1920s.

About Francisco Ayala

Early Life and Education

Francisco Ayala was born in Granada, Spain. When he was 16, he moved to Madrid. There, he studied Law and Humanities at university. During these years, he wrote and published his first two novels. These were Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espíritu (Tragedy of a Spiritless Man) and Historia de un amanecer (A Sunrise Tale).

He earned a high university degree, a Ph.D., in Law from the University of Madrid. He also became a teacher there. From 1929 to 1931, he received a special grant to study philosophy and sociology in Berlin, Germany. This was when Nazism was starting to become powerful. In Berlin, he met Etelvina Silva Vargas from Chile. They got married in 1931 and later had a daughter named Nina.

Francisco Ayala often wrote for important magazines like Revista de Occidente and Gaceta Literaria.

Life During the Spanish Civil War

When the Second Spanish Republic began, Francisco Ayala worked as a lawyer for the Spanish Parliament. He was giving lectures in South America when the Spanish Civil War started in Spain. During the war, he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Sadly, his father and younger brother were killed by the Nationalists during the war. When the Republican side lost the war, Francisco Ayala had to leave Spain. He went to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for ten years. There, he worked for a literary magazine called Sur and a newspaper called La Nación. He also worked for a publisher named Losada. With another Spanish writer, Lorenzo Luzuriaga, he started a magazine called Realidad.

Life in Exile and Return to Spain

In the 1950s, Francisco Ayala moved to Puerto Rico. He taught at the Law school in the University of Puerto Rico. Later, he moved to the United States. He taught Spanish Literature at famous universities like Princeton, Rutgers, New York, and Chicago. Even though he lived far away, he stayed connected to Puerto Rico. Many other Spanish artists, like Pablo Casals and Juan Ramón Jiménez, also lived there in exile.

He first returned to Spain in 1960. After that, he came back every summer and bought a house. He started to be part of Spain's literary world again. In 1976, after Franco's death, he moved back to Madrid for good. He continued to write, give lectures, and work as a journalist.

Awards and Recognition

In 1983, when he was 77 years old, Francisco Ayala was chosen to be a member of the Real Academia Española. This is a very important group that protects the Spanish language. He kept writing even when he was very old.

He received many important awards:

• In 1988, he won the Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas. This is a national award for Spanish literature.
• In 1991, he received the Miguel de Cervantes Prize. This is one of the most important literary awards in the Spanish-speaking world.
• In 1998, he won the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature.

In November 2003, he was named an Honorary Fellow of the Granada Histórica association in his hometown. He said this was "maybe, one of the most beautiful moments" of his later life. He felt recognized by the people of Granada.

He was also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts starting in 1997. In 2007, he was the first person to donate items to the Caja de las Letras (Letter Vault) at the Instituto Cervantes. This is a special place that keeps important items from Spanish writers.

Francisco Ayala passed away in Madrid on November 3, 2009, at the age of 103. He was cremated at the San Isidro cemetery in Madrid. He was survived by his second wife, Carolyn Richmond, who was a scholar and translator.

His Literary Works

Experts often divide Francisco Ayala's writing into two main periods: before and after the Spanish Civil War.

Early Works (Before the Civil War)

His first novels, Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espíritu (1925) and Historia de un amanecer (1926), followed a traditional storytelling style. Later, with El boxeador y el ángel (The Boxer and the Angel, 1929) and Cazador en el alba (Hunter at Dawn, 1930), he started writing in a more modern, experimental style. These stories used a lot of metaphors and focused on the modern world, rather than just telling a simple plot.

Later Works (After the Civil War)

After a long break from writing, Ayala began his second period while in exile. His story El hechizado (The Bewitched, 1944) was about a man trying to meet King Charles II of Spain. This story became part of a collection called Los usurpadores (The Usurpers, 1949). This collection had seven stories, all about the desire for power. Ayala used these stories to look at the past and understand the present better. His writing here showed a world that felt strange and unfair, and he criticized the bad side of power.

La cabeza del cordero (The Lamb Head, 1949) is a collection of stories about the Civil War. In these, he focused on understanding human feelings and actions during the conflict. Muertes de perro (Dog Deaths, 1958) showed a country under a dictatorship. It described how people could lose their good values in such a world. El fondo del vaso (The Bottom of the Glass, 1962) was a follow-up to his previous novel. In this book, he used a lot of irony, but also showed more understanding for people.

After these novels, Ayala continued to publish short stories. Some of these were in collections like El As de Bastos (The Ace of Staves, 1963) and El rapto (The Kidnap, 1965). El jardín de las delicias (The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1971) had two parts. One part was objective and satirical, while the other was more emotional and poetic. He also published De triunfos y penas (Of Triumph and Sorrow, 1982) and El jardín de las malicias (The Garden of Earthly Malice, 1988). This last book collected six stories he wrote at different times.

Francisco Ayala also wrote many essays. These were non-fiction writings about political and social topics. He also wrote about Spain's past and present, movies, and literature.

He wrote his life story in a book called Recuerdos y olvidos (Reminiscences and Overlooks). This book was published in several parts between 1982 and 2006.

List of Works

Images for kids

• 

  A portrait of Francisco Ayala.

See also

In Spanish: Francisco Ayala para niños