José María Gironella

José María Gironella (b. died January 03, 2003, Arenys de Mar)was a Catalan and Spanish author best known for his fictional work The Cypresses Believe in God (Los ciprese creen en Dios) published in Spain in 1953, Editorial Planeta, Barcelona, and translated into English by Harriet De Onís in 1955. The book is a novel in two parts, and the first part of a trilogy, written from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, by its Catholic author, who had been educated in a seminary. The story is set in Girona, a city in eastern Catalonia, and follows the life of a family, from 1931 until the Spanish Civil War breaks out in 1936. The protagonist is an atheist from Madrid who is married to a devout Basque woman, with whom he has three children. In a sequel to Cypresses, One Million Dead (Un Millon de Muertos), translated by Joan MacLean, Gironella follows the Alvear family through the war. The final book in the trilogy is Peace after War, published in English in 1969, was also translated by MacLean.

Gironella fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Spanish Nationalists under Franco.