Writer Almudena Grandes, literary conscience of an outraged Spain, dies at 61

He believed it, said it and proved it: "Literature is life too many."

Almudena Grandes opted to understand life by writing it, looking sideways and backwards, living, as happens in her novels, from reality and imagination to recognize emotions that otherwise would not reach.

.

He was born in Madrid on May 7, 1960, in the Chamartín neighborhood. He studied Geography and History. He graduated from the same. The first steps in the trade were taken by writing texts for encyclopedias, at the same time putting together short stories. From adolescence he showed an extreme appetite for literature. He maintained it for 40 years of novels, stories, articles in

,

.

He lived the 80s with intensity, that festive corner of the

Hispanic

called

. Malasaña was the barge of a time in which Almudena Grandes established her first literary astronomy, full of impetus and new stimuli. From what he enjoyed and learned in those days he extracted his first novel,

. It was 1989. A story with which he won the XI La Sonrisa Vertical Award and since then linked all his work to the Tusquets publishing house, promoter of the award.

. It was his first hit. The novel was translated into 20 languages. And, from there, his expedition began. Bigas Luna adapted the story to the cinema. "

gave me the chance to live the life I wanted. I will never be able to pay off that debt, "he commented years later.

In his second novel,

(1991), he traced the itinerary (yet to be done) of what would be his narrative work. Gerardo Herrero adapted it to the cinema in 1996. It is a love story in a soulless Madrid. It is a story of two bewildered beings. It is a story of drive and grief. But it is with the third of his novels,

(1994)

. The one of his life was displayed in a book of stories,

(1991).

. It will be in other novels again. They came later

(1998) -transformed into a film this time by Azucena Rodríguez-,

(2002) and

(2004).

own realism where psychological introspection drives the characters and their plots.

In this, he follows the path of some writers with whom he always maintained the link: Galdós and Pardo Bazán, among others. And also with

. In the prologue to

wrote this: "As in the literary world a principle of sexual discrimination prevails that forces writers to pronounce at every step about the gender of the characters in their books, while writers are privileged and enviously free to do so, I would like to clarify, once and for all, that ... I believe that there is no kind of women's literature at all ... ". But yes,

.

Almudena Grandes developed a critical and attentive look at the convulsions of this time.

Many times it was from his own biography. From very early on, he developed and waved a political commitment on the margin of the left. The defunct United Left was his shelter against the storm. And from there the construction of his intellectual ideology also starts. He also made an office of this through his articles in the press, which are the extension and, at times, the laboratory of his literary side. Memory also belongs to anonymous people and it is to them that it somehow joins and lends a voice in the newspapers. Those who have no place in the great epic of the twentieth century are those who interest him.

Another part of the germ of what will be his last narrative stage is in an extensive and complex story of 919 pages,

, where he exposes the history of two Spanish families

throughout

much of the 20th century. One of Falangist affiliation and the other declared Republican. The two linked by a marriage between their children. In a way, this novel is the beginning of the last of his literary projects, the series of novels entitled

:

in a period between 1939 and 1964. So far it has published five:

(2010),

(2012),

(2014),

(2017) and

(2020) -that year she was named an

by the UNED-.

and which sets the plot in 1964, when the 25th anniversary of Paz is fulfilled. This set is his great legacy, the one that runs through part of our recent history and its damages.

With the disease in full swing, he also did not stop writing

. On October 21, he made his illness known in his article in

. He titled it

: "I will continue to be here, writing an article on this same page every two weeks, and on the back cover of the newspaper every Monday. That space, sacred to me,

anywhere. circumstance, it will allow us to meet, to know about ourselves, to stay together ".

He also wrote writing about everything he had around him: from his neighborhood, Malasaña; of

-he belonged to the Peña de los 50-, of the summers in Rota (together with her husband, the poet and director of the Cervantes Institute,

...).

The houses of Almudena and Luis have been for years a meeting place, something like an open square of people from culture, politics, the street.

She boasted of making the best stew in this city (Madrid).

Maybe it was.

Around a table with diners, the afternoons passed between verses, and laughter, and anecdotes, like a platform for happiness.

A few months ago she made her debut as a grandmother.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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