Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} A Mortal Spring by Francisco Umbral Francisco Umbral. The writer Francisco Umbral, who has died of pneumonia aged 72, was the angry man of Spanish letters. Born in , he was brought up in the provincial Castilian city of . Following the tradition of several generations of aspirant writers, and most particularly his beloved Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, he arrived back in Madrid in 1961 to take the capital by storm with the force of his personality linked to the power of his pen. Unlike most, he succeeded. Umbral became a public figure during the past 15 years. He wrote a daily column on the back page of , in which he revelled in fierce attacks on writers, politicians and the famous. He could never resist the witty put-down. He was also known for his dandyism: long overcoats, long silvery hair, large, thick-rimmed glasses, a white scarf and the wide-winged wicker chair in which he was often interviewed, his face sculpted in affront at the injustice and irritations of life. He once stormed out of a television panel because no one was discussing his book, and he published an entire book attacking his maestro and friend Camilo José Cela (obituary, January 18 2002) after Cela's death. Even Cela's enemies thought this too much. Umbral was capricious and self-obsessed, but he was also honest and direct, as those who disdain ethics and diplomacy can be. The key to Umbral's bitter and sarcastic character lay in his past. He was born to an unmarried mother and brought up in the exclusion illegitimacy caused in those days. He barely attended school and worked as a messenger boy in a bank at the age of 14. Valladolid, a stronghold of fascism, was not a good place for an individualist free-thinker to grow up in in the 1940s. Alone after his mother died in 1953, Umbral soaked up the Spanish classics. The 17th-century writer Francisco de Quevedo and Mariano José de Larra from the 19th century, both flashing wits satirising society in elegant language and scathing tones, became his classical models. His opportunity came in 1958, when the novelist took him on at Valladolid's local paper, El Norte de Castilla. He seized the chance, and from then on worked as a columnist on Ya, La Vanguardia, El País, Diario 16 and, since its foundation in 1989, El Mundo. Travesía de Madrid (Madrid Crossing, 1966) was his first novel. His verbal fireworks were already in place. Umbral rejected 1950s' social realism. He was not interested in telling a story, but in writing beautiful prose. Uninterested in plot or psychology of characters, he expressed his own vitality, views and feelings. "An aesthete to his bones," said Delibes. His notoriety and his dedication to newspaper writing at first obscured his literary qualities. In 1959 he married a photographer, María España. Their only child died aged six of leukaemia, which gave rise to Mortal y Rosa (Mortal and Pink, 1975), a bitter, intense meditation on death. It made his name as a novelist, though opinion has always been divided. His work is considered outstandingly rich by his many fans, and overloaded and self-consciously poetic by just as many detractors. Almost despite himself, Umbral's work is testimony to his convulsive epoch of dictatorship and disappointing democracy. La Noche que Llegué al Café Gijón (The Night I Reached the Cafe Gijón, 1977), Trilogía de Madrid (Madrid Trilogy, 1984) and El Hijo de Greta Garbo (Greta Garbo's Son, 1982) - about his mother - are autobiographical novels about Valladolid ("rotten borough") and Madrid ("capital of pain"). He said of his columns, "They're like sausages - you can stuff anything you want in them," and his novels are like that too: diverse in tone and subject, and combining the richest classical Spanish with scabrous obscenities and popular language. He was a man of the left, though never affiliated to any party, and a great admirer of the Communist party leader Julio Anguita. In the 1990s, he moved to the right along with El Mundo. His ferocious attacks on former prime minister Felipe González and corruption in his socialist governments led on to his recent admiration for the leader of the conservative opposition, Mariano Rajoy. Umbral wrote some 80 books, including essays, polemic, criticism and novels. These won numerous prizes, including the Nadal with Las Ninfas (The Nymphs, 1975) and the two highest awards in Spanish-language letters, the Príncipe de Asturias in 1996 and the Cervantes in 2000. Curiously, he was never accepted into the Royal Spanish Academy, though several lesser talents were. The probable reason was illustrative of his character. He inveighed in articles against the venal, lickspittling nature of successive academy presidents, who blocked his entry in spite - thus, to Umbral's fury (he was ambitious for all honours) and delight, proving his point. He is survived by his wife. · Francisco Umbral (Francisco Pérez Martínez), writer, born May 11 1935; died August 28 2007. A MORTAL SPRING. Umbral, a prominent Spanish litterateur, kept a loose, poetic journal during the hard time of his young son's dying: ""successive concentric illuminations, working the present over, as the bullfighter works the bull over with the muleta, until it is exhausted."" But it was clearly more a case of the present working Umbral over; that greatest-seeming crime of existence--the death of a child--allowed him only indirect glances, sometimes under huge hazes of projective hyperbole, sometimes shielded by a frustrating imprecision (the nature of the boy's illness, Umbral's wife's reactions: we know little or nothing of either). And occasionally the reality of fatal illness is too much altogether for Umbral, and he writes a deadened, profound literary criticism instead: ""Prose is prose because it has a shadow, the shadow of the person standing in its light. If it has no shadow it is poetry."" Yet always the atrocious dying returns: ""Something is keeping a sharp, greedy eye on us, and I do my best to see that we act as we always do so that it will ignore us. Our life is the same as always, except that now it is a life being spied on by horror."" And after the boy finally dies: ""A Sunday drains away like a dying sea beyond hope of recovery. If I pick up the telephone, I'm afraid they'll connect me with the cemetery."" Deeply sad; scattered in style by alternating gusts of guilt, self-indulgence, self-loathing, and resignation; a writer writing vainly against the slope of the unrecordable. And largely of literary, not personal, interest. Bloom * Creative Network. Francisco Umbral , also Paco Umbral, (May 11, 1935 – August 28, 2007) was a Spanish journalist, novelist, biographer and essayist. 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 emnities. 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 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 , 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 ’s most varied and influential magazines and newspapers. Francisco Umbral was awarded with the Premio Nadal (1975), Premio Cervantes (2000), among others. Francisco Umbral, a prolific writer who was an acerbic observer of his contemporary Spain, died early Tuesday, 28th of August. He was 72. Spain is culture. In this section you can search all our contents throughout the different stages in the history of art in Spain, to find styles such as Baroque, Gothic, Mudejar and many, many more. Topics. In this section you can search among all our contents by topic to find the different resources available in Spain, such as museums, routes, destinations, monuments and many, many more. Audience. This section provides access to all the contents in a personalised way, according to your own particular interests and socio-demographic profile. Autonomous Regions. This section provides access to the contents in each autonomous region by browsing through maps. Francisco Umbral. Share. Francisco Umbral © Begoña Rivas / EL MUNDO. Francisco Pérez Martínez was born in Madrid in 1935. He grew up in Valladolid, where he very soon started as an office boy in a bank. He was self-taught, and his passion for reading led to his becoming a writer. He started in journalism in 1958 on ‘El Norte de Castilla’, under the tutorship of Miguel Delibes. In the 1960s, he moved to Madrid, where he worked on several magazines and publications. In 1964 he won the Gabriel Miró short story award. A year later, he published his first novel ‘Balada de Gamberros’, followed by ‘Las Ninfas’ which won the Nadal award in 1975, and ‘Mortal Spring’. He wrote articles for the main Spanish newspapers. He died in 2007. Nadal Prize (1975) González-Ruano Journalism Award (1979) Critical Narrative in Spanish Award (1991) Francisco Cerecedo Journalism Award (1990) Príncipe de Asturias Award for Literature (1996) National Spanish Literature Award (1997) Cervantes Award (2000) Mesonero Romanos Journalism Award (2003) La noche que llegué al café Gijón. A novel by Francisco Umbral recalling his literary beginnings in Madrid. Mortal y rosa. Francisco Umbral's most personal and poetic work is born out of a family tragedy. Crossing Madrid. A novel written in Francisco Umbral’s youth, in which he attempted to renovate Spanish narrative at the end of the Franco period. Francisco Umbral. Francisco Umbral (born Francisco Pérez Martínez) (May 11, 1932 [ 1 ] - August 28, 2007) was a Spanish journalist, novelist, biographer and essayist. Contents. 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 '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 ] 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 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) , 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. National Prize for Stories (1964) Carlos Arniches de la SGAE (1975) (1975) César González Ruano Prize for Newspaper Journalism (1980) Francisco Cerecedo Prize (1995) for Letters (1996) National Prize for Letters (1997) (2000) References. This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the Spanish-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of 2 November 2004. ^ 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. External links. 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