From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Francisco "Paco" Umbral (born Francisco Pérez
Martínez) (May 11, 1932[1] -
August 28, 2007) was a Spanish
journalist, novelist, biographer and essayist.
Style
Although he was born in Madrid, a city that has inspired most of his
work, his early years were spent in Valladolid. His mother travelled to Madrid
for his birth, because he was an illegitimate child. His mother's
indifference and distance from him marked him with an enduring
sadness, as did the infant death of his only son, from which event
was born his saddest and most personal book, Mortal y
rosa, (A Mortal Spring). This created in the author a
characteristic haughty manner, devoid of hopefulness, absolutely
submerged in literature, which has provoked many polemics and
enmities.
In Valladolid he began his journalistic career at El Norte
de Castilla, under the tutorship of Miguel Delibes. In 1961 he went to
Madrid as a correspondent and quickly became a prestigious reporter
and columnist in magazines such as La Estafeta Literaria,
Mundo Hispánico and Interviú, and in
influential newspapers such as Ya and ABC, although he is best known for his
writings for the daily newspapers El País (founded in 1976 just after the
death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and the restoration of
constitutionalism and democracy) and El Mundo
(founded 1990). At El País he was one of the reporters who
best was able to describe the countercultural movement known as
La Movida, but his literary quality
undoubtedly came from his creative fecundity, his linguistic
sensibility and the extreme originality of his style, very careful
and complex, creative in its syntax, very metaphorically developed
and flexible, abundant in neologisms and intertextual allusions; in
sum, of a demanding lyric and aesthetic quality. He practices a
species of anti-bourgeois criticism of customs and manners,
without renouncing a romantic ego, and, in the words of Novalis, has the intent of
giving the dignity of the unknown to the everyday, impregnating it
with a desolate tenderness. As a political reporter, Umbral is a
highly trenchant writer. Having become a successful journalist and
writer, he worked with Spain's most varied and influential
magazines and newspapers. Among the many published volumes of his
articles, the following stand out:
- Diario de un snob ("Diary of a snob", 1973)
- Spleen de Madrid ("Madrid Spleen", 1973, the title
being a reference to Charles Baudelaire's Paris
Spleen)
- España cañí (1975)
- Iba yo a comprar el pan ("I went out to buy bread",
1976)
- Los políticos ("Politicians", 1976)
- Crónicas postfranquistas ("Post-Francoist Chronicles",
1976)
- Las Jais ("Birds", "Chicks" [slang, i.e. "Girls"]
1977)
- Spleen de Madrid–2 ("Madrid Spleen–2", 1982)
- España como invento ("Spain as an invention",
1984)
- La belleza convulsa ("Convulsive Beauty", 1985)
- Memorias de un hijo del siglo ("Memories of a child of
the century", 1986)
- Mis placeres y mis días ("My pleasures and my days",
1994).
Among non-readers, he is remembered by an appearance in Mercedes
Milá's TV program Queremos saber in Antena 3 TV (1993).
After some chatter, Umbral breaks conversation claiming that he has
come to talk about his latest book, La década roja, not to
entertain her[2]
Work
Narratives
Highlights of his very extensive narrative production, in which
autobiographical aspects stand out, include:
- Tamouré (1965)
- Balada de gamberros ("Louts' Ballad", 1965)
- Travesía de Madrid ("Crossing Madrid", 1966)
- Las vírgenes ("The Virgins", 1969)
- Si hubiéramos sabido que el amor era eso ("If we had
known that love was this", 1969)
- El Giocondo (1970) about the homosexual milieu of
Madrid (the title is a play on the Italian "la Gioconda", the
name of the painting known in English as the Mona Lisa)
- Las europeas ("European Girls", 1970)
- Memorias de un niño de derechas ("Memoirs of a child
of the right", 1972)
- Los males sagrados ("Holy Evils", 1973)
- Mortal y rosa ("A Mortal Spring", 1975)
- Las ninfas ("The Nymphs", 1975, received the Premio Nadal)
- Los amores diurnos ("Daytime Love", 1979)
- Los helechos arborescentes ("The Tree Ferns", 1980)
- La bestia rosa ("The Pink Beast", 1981)
- Los ángeles custodios ("Guardian Angels", 1981)
- Las ánimas del purgatorio, ("The Souls of Purgatory",
1982)
- Trilogía de Madrid ("Madrid Trilogy", 1984)
- Pío XII, escolta mora y un general sin un ojo ("Pius XII, the
Moorish Escort and a General Missing an Eye", 1985)
- Nada en el domingo ("Nothing on Sunday", 1988)
- El día en que violé a Alma Mahler ("The Day I Raped Alma
Mahler", 1988)
- El fulgor de África ("The Radiance of Africa",
1989)
- Y Tierno Galván ascendió a los cielos ("And Tierno
Galván Ascended to the Heavens", 1990)
- Leyenda del César Visionario ("The Legend of the
Visionary Caesar", 1992, winner of the Critics' Prize), Madrid,
1940 (1993)
- Las señoritas de Aviñón ("The Young Ladies of
Avignon", 1995; the title is a reference to a painting by Pablo Picasso
generally known in the English-speaking world by its French-language
name, Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon)
- Madrid 1950 (1995), Capital del dolor ("The
Capital of Sorrow", 1996)
- La forja de un ladrón ("A Thief's Forge", 1997)
- Historias de amor y Viagra ("Stories of Love and Viagra",
1998)
In 1985, Umbral began a series of novels about the most
important events in the history of twentieth-century Spain, after
the fashion of the Episodios nacionales of Benito Pérez Galdós for the
nineteenth century.
Essays
He also wrote a set of very personal essays, under such titles
as:
- La escritura perpetua (De Rubén Darío a Cela)
("Perpetual Writing (From Rubén Darío to Cela)",
1989)*
- Las palabras de la tribu ("The Words of the Tribe",
1994)
- Diccionario de literatura ("Dictionary of Literature",
1995)
- Madrid, tribu urbana ("Madrid, Urban Tribe",
2000)
- Los alucinados ("Hallucinations", 2001)
- Cela: un cadáver exquisito ("Cela, an Exquisite
Corpse", 2002)
- ¿Y cómo eran las ligas de Madame Bovary? ("And What
Were Madame
Bovary's Garters Like?", 2003).
His preoccupation with slang is shown by:
- Diccionario para pobres ("Dictionary for the Poor",
1977)
- Diccionario cheli ("Cheli Dictionary", 1983,
Cheli being to Madrid
what Cockney is to London)
- Las palabras de la tribu ("The Words of the Tribe",
1994).
Biographies and
autobiographies
He also published biographical and literary essays presenting
original views about classical authors of the 19th and 20th
centuries, such as:
- Larra, anatomía de un dandy ("Larra, anatomy of a dandy",
1965)
- Lorca, poeta maldito (1968, about Federico García Lorca; the title
is ambiguous, and could be interpreted as calling Lorca a "wicked",
or "indecent" poet or one who is "cursed" either in the sense of
being "spoken against" or "unlucky")
- Ramón y las vanguardias ("Ramón and the vanguards",
1978)
- Valle-Inclán: los botines blancos de piqué ("Valle-Inclán: "White
Piqué Boots", 1997)
Other biographies are more revealing:
- Valle-Inclán (1968)
- Lord Byron (1969)
- Miguel Delibes (1970)
- Lola Flores, sociología de la petenera ("Lola Flores, sociology
of the petenera", 1971).
Although autobiography is also present throughout his
journalistic work, several of his works are explicitly
autobiographical:
- La noche que llegué al café Gijón ("The night I
arrived at the Café Gijón" 1977)
- Memorias eróticas (Los cuerpos gloriosos) ("Erotic
memories: the glorious bodies", 1992)
- El hijo de Greta Garbo ("Son of Greta Garbo", 1977).
Honours and
awards
External
links
References
- ^
Caballé, Anna: Francisco Umbral. El frío de una vida,
Espasa-Calpe, 2004, p.69. ISBN 978-84-670-1308-5.
- ^ «¡Yo he venido aquí a hablar
de mi libro!», Darío Prieto, El Mundo, 29 August
2007.
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