Camilo José Cela (1916 – 2002) was a writer, novelist, journalist and academic of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).

He was born in the parish of Iria Flavia, in the province of A Coruña. In 1925 his family moved to Madrid and, years later, in 1934, he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at the Complutense University. However, the Contemporary Literature classes taught by the poet Pedro Salinas, which he attended as an auditor, led him to change course towards a literary vocation.

His first work was a book of poems entitled * Pisando la dudosa luz del día* (Treading the Doubtful Light of Day) , published during the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 he resumed his literary work and two years later published his first novel, * La familia de Pascual Duarte* (The Family of Pascual Duarte ). Since then, he has written more than a dozen novels, as well as numerous short stories, fables, novellas, and articles for newspapers and magazines.

Among his novels are The Hive (1951), The Windmill (1956), San Camilo 1936 (1969), Christ versus Arizona (1988), and Boxwood (1999). Cela also cultivated poetry and published, among other titles, The Monastery and the Words (1945), Songbook of the Alcarria (1948), Three Galician Poems (1957), and Hourglass, Sundial, Blood Clock (1989). He also wrote three plays: María Sabina (1967), Homage to Bosch I: The Haywain, or the Inventor of the Guitar (1969), and Homage to Bosch II: The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, or the Invention of the Club (1999).

He was the director and founder of the magazine Papeles de Son Armadans, whose first issue dates from 1956. The following year he was elected to occupy chair Q of the Royal Spanish Academy. He founded the Alfaguara publishing house in 1964.

Cela received notable distinctions throughout his career, such as the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature (1987), the Nobel Prize for Literature (1989) and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1995).