Francisco Ayala

This article is about a Spanish writer and sociologist. For the US biologist and philosopher of the same name, see Francisco J. Ayala .

Francisco Ayala

Francisco Ayala Arroyo y Luz García-Duarte (born March 16, 1906 in Granada , Spain , †  November 3, 2009 in Madrid ) was a Spanish writer and sociologist .

Ayala came from a wealthy family. His father was the lawyer Francisco Ayala Arroyo (* April 28, 1878) and his mother the María de la Luz García-Duarte González (* 1877). The maternal grandfather was the physician and university professor Eduardo García Duarte (1830-1905).

He grew up first in Granada, later in Madrid, where he studied law, philosophy and literature. In 1925 his first novel, Tragicomedy of a Mindless Man, was published . He became an employee of the magazine Revista de Occidente , edited by José Ortega y Gasset . From 1929 to 1931 he lived in Berlin . In the 1930s he worked as a lawyer for the Republican government of Spain.

During the looming defeat of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War , he went into exile in 1939, first to Latin America (stops in Argentina , Puerto Rico ) and finally to the USA . There he worked as a university professor for literature and sociology, as a journalist and translator of literary works (including Thomas Mann , Rainer Maria Rilke ). After Franco's death , Ayala returned to Spain in 1976.

The central theme of his literary work is the question of moral entanglement in political office, with which he processed his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, his narrative work is primarily characterized by literary quality, without being ostensibly political. He also wrote essays on political, social and literary topics.

Awards

• Member of the Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ) (1984)
• Spanish National Prize for Literature (1988)
• Cervantes Prize (1991)
• Prince of Asturias Prize (1998)

Works (in German)

• Spain today (= España a la fecha , 1965). Luchterhand (sociological essays), Neuwied 1966
• The head of the lamb . Stories (original edition). Manesse , Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-7175-2028-8
• How dogs die . Roman (= Muertes de perro , 1958). Manesse, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-7175-2096-2

Web links

Commons : Francisco Ayala  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Literature by and about Francisco Ayala in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin
• Literature by and about Francisco Ayala in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Francisco Ayala in the catalog of the library of the Instituto Cervantes in Germany