Journey to the Alcarria in 10 Stages

Camilo José Cela Trulock was a Spanish writer and academic who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in Iria Flavia, A Coruña, on May 11, 1916 and died in Madrid on January 17, 2002.

His family moved to Madrid in 1925. He was taken ill before he finished his high school studies and was admitted to a sanatorium in Guadarrama (Madrid). During his time there, from 1931 to 1932, he spent his long, enforced periods of rest reading.

In 1934, he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at Madrid's Complutense University. He left the faculty shortly afterwards to attend lectures as an unregistered student at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, where the poet Pedro Salinas was teaching Contemporary Literature. Cela showed Salinas his first poems, and Salinas offered him encouragement and advice. This encounter proved to be a pivotal one for the young Cela, who decided to pursue his literary vocation. While studying there, he met Alonso Zamora Vicente, María Zambrano, and Miguel Hernández. It was through them that he was introduced to other Madrid intellectuals of the time.

He finished his first book during the Spanish Civil War: a collection of poems called "Pisando la dudosa luz del día" (Treading the Dubious Light of Day).

In 1940, he began studying law, and in the same year his first works appeared in print. His first major work, "La familia de Pascual Duarte" (The Family of Pascual Duarte) appeared 2 years later and, despite its success, ran into problems with the Church. This led to the second edition of the book being banned, although it was finally published in Buenos Aires.

Shortly after that, Cela abandoned his law studies to concentrate on his literary career.

In 1944, he began work on "La Colmena" (The Hive). Later, he held 2 exhibitions of his paintings and published his books "Viaje a La Alcarria" (Journey to the Alcarria) and "El cancionero de La Alcarria" (Songbook of the Alcarria). "La Colmena" was published in Buenos Aires in 1951 and immediately banned in Spain.

In 1954, he moved to the island of Majorca, where he spent a large part of his life. In 1957, he was chosen to become a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, occupying the seat bearing the letter Q.

In the words of Francisco García Marquina, biographer and friend of the writer Camilo José Cela: "The simplicity of 'Journey to the Alcarria' is the result of a difficult exercise in literary refinement, and its readability opens up a world of great poetic depth..."

"The purity of its use of language has led to it being used as a textbook at a lot of foreign universities, not only to study the Spanish language, but also the philosophy of post-war rural Spain. Cela drew attention to the Alcarria just as the maestro Joaquín Rodrigo did with Aranjuez, Leopoldo Alas (known as 'Clarín') with Oviedo, and Sorolla with the light of the Mediterranean. Just as many foreigners know Pamplona because of Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises,' many others arrive in Guadalajara asking about the Alcarria with Cela's book tucked under one arm."