The writer Francisco Ayala has died in Madrid at the age of 103 years following a very short deterioration in his health during the past few days.
Throughout his literary career, Francisco Ayala was regarded as one of the most important writers in Hispanic language and received numerous accolades, including the Premio de la Crítica in 1972, Premio Nacional de Narrativa in 1983 and Premio de las Letras Españolas y Andaluzas in 1988 and 1990.
At the end of the Spanish Civil War, Ayala iswas forced to live in exile. He lived in Buenos Aires and taught sociology at the University of La Plata from 1939 to 1950 and founded the literary magazine ‘Realidad’. Ayala was linked to the University and teaching until 1977, at which he retired from his academic career.
He moved to Puerto Rico, where he founded the famous magazine ‘La Torre’. He then spent time in New York and Chicago before returning to Spain permanently in 1980. Ayala had, however, made periodic sneaky trips to Spain since 1960, despite the Franco regime still being in power.
Some of his most prominent works include:
La cabeza del cordero. (1949), ‘Los usurpadores’ (1949), ‘Historia de macacos’ (1954), ‘Muertes de perro’ (1958), ‘El fondo del vaso’ (1962) ‘El as de bastos’ (1963), ‘De este mundo al otro’ (1963), ‘El rapto’ (1965), ‘El jardín de las delicias’ (1971), ‘El inquisidor’ (1972), ‘El tiempo y yo’ ; ‘El jardín de las delicias’ (1978), ‘De raptos, violaciones, macacos y demás inconveniencias’ (1982), ‘De mis pasos en la tierra’ (1996), ‘Cazador en el alba’ (2002) yand ‘Recuerdos y Olvidos’, an autobiographical work.