Cela, Camilo José (kämē`lō hōsā` thā`lä), 1916–2002, Spanish novelist, short-story writer, and poet, b. Iria Flavia. Among the writers to emerge after the Spanish civil war Spanish civil war, 1936–39, conflict in which the conservative and traditionalist forces in Spain rose against and finally overthrew the second Spanish republic.
..... Click the link for more information. , he won critical acclaim with the novel La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942, tr. The Family of Pascual Duarte, 1964). Its brutal realism and crudeness of language are characteristic of Cela's style. These attributes are also evident in La colmena (1951; tr. The Hive, 1953), a powerful work detailing three days among the poor of Madrid. Cela was an extremely prolific author, but comparatively few of his works have been translated into English. These include the novels Mrs. Caldwell habla a su hijo (1953; tr. Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son, 1968), San Camilo, 1936 (1969, tr. 1991), and the autobiographical Mazurca para dos muertos (1988; tr. Mazurka for Two Dead Men, 1992). Cela is also noted for his vivid travel books, especially Viaje a la Alcarría (1948, tr. Journey to the Alcarria, 1964 and 1990), and for such nonfiction works as Diccionario secreto (1974), a compilation of colorful Spanish vulgarities, and De genes, dioses y tiranos (1981, tr. Of Genes, Gods and Tyrants, 1987), an examination of genetics and ethics. In all, he wrote 14 novels and 60 other volumes. Among Spain's most celebrated 20th-century writers, Cela won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989 and Spain's highest literary award, the Cervantes Prize, in 1995.

Bibliography

See studies by R. Kirsner (1963), D. W. McPheeters (1969), D. Henn (1974), L. C. Charlebois (1998), and J. Pérez (2000).

Cela (Trulock), Camilo José

(born May 11, 1916, Iria Flavia, Spain—died Jan. 17, 2002, Madrid) Spanish writer. As a young man Cela served with Francisco Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War; his literary works, however, represent a renunciation of his former Falangist sympathies. Primarily novels, short narratives, and travel diaries of Spain and Latin America, they are characteristically experimental and innovative in form and content. He is sometimes credited with establishing tremendismo, a narrative style tending to emphasize violence and grotesque imagery. He is perhaps best known for his first novel, The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942); other works include The Hive (1951) and the avant-garde San Camilo, 1936 (1969). In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.