Cela, Camilo José

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, 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).

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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.

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Cela, Camilo José 

Born May 11, 1916, in Padrón, La Corana Province. Spanish writer. Member of the Royal Spanish Academy (1957).

Cela studied law in Madrid and England. His novel The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942), which laid the foundations of tremendista literature (literature employing extensive gory detail for effect; from the Spanish tremendo—“horrible,” “terrible”), depicts everyday life in Spain during the Franco period, as does his first objectivist novel, The Hive (1943; published 1951). The New Adventures and Misadventures of Lazarillo de Termes (1944) was an attempt to revive the genre of the picaresque novel. Cela’s travel notes A Journey to the Alcarria (1948) had a considerable influence on Spanish objectivist prose.

Cela’s principal theme is the tragic condition of human beings in bourgeois society, a society whose bankruptcy Cela demonstrates. In such works as the collection of essays entitled The Wheel of Leisure (1957), the common people are presented as bearers of lofty moral qualities. Cela published A Sheaf of Fables Without Love (1962) in collaboration with P. Picasso. The novel The Eve, Day, and Octave of the Feast of St. Camilo, Madrid 1936 expresses profound sympathy for the victims of the Civil War of 1936–39.

WORKS

Obra completa, vols. 1–6. Madrid [1962–68].
Los viejos amigos, vols. 1–2. Barcelona, 1960.
Diccionario secreto, vol. 1. Madrid-Barcelona, 1968.
Al servicio de algo. Madrid-Barcelona [1969].
In Russian translation:
Apel’siny—zimnie plody. [Foreword by O. Savich.] Mosow, 1965.
Short stories in the collection Ispanskaia novella XX veka. [Moscow, 1965.]
Sem’ia Paskualia Duarte; Ulei; Povesti i rasskazy. [Foreword by I. Terterian.] Moscow, 1970.

REFERENCES

Iasnyi, V. K. Begstvo v deistvitel’nost’. Moscow, 1971.
Terterian, I. Sovremennyi ispanskii roman (1939–1969). Moscow, 1972.
Ilie, P. La novelística de Camilo José Cela. Madrid [1963].
Kirsner, R. The Novels and Travels of Camilo José Cela. Chapel Hill, N.C.[1966].
Foster, D. W. Forms of the Novel in the Works of Camilo José Cela. Columbia, Mo. [1967].
McPheeters, D. W. Camile José Cela. New York [1969].

V. K. IASNYI