The writer and poet Rafael de Cózar has died at the age of 53 years following a fire at his home in Bormujos, Sevilla.
The fire began at 21:30 at the home in calle Severo Ochoa, the flames quickly spreading through the typically Sevillian house complete with wooden beams.
The fire is thought to have started in the kitchen as the result of an explosion, possibly a gas stove, and the flames quickly reached the ceiling and then upstairs to the extensive library. Rafael de Cózar is thought to have been in one of the upper rooms when the fire began.
His wife had just gone out to the supermarket a few minutes before the incident. Medics tried to revive the author but to no avail.
Born in Tetuan, Morocco, he moved to Cádiz at the age of eleven. Rafael de Cózar was a doctor of philology and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Sevilla and a scholar of modernist literature.
In 1996 he won the Vargas Llosa Novel Prize for his book ‘El corazón de los trapos’.