Miguel Delibes Setién, writer, journalist and academic, was born in Valladolid in 1920. He is a graduate in Law, commercial administrator and journalist. He was employed in banking and also worked as a caricaturist.

For some years he ran the newspaper "El Norte de Castilla" and it was at the time he was on the paper that he received the news that he had been granted the Nadal Prize for novels for his work "La sombra de los cipreses es alargada". The year was 1947; Delibes was then twenty-seven years old, and in that moment he decided to begin what was to be a brilliant literary career. He later recognised that it was this first prize which drove him to write.

As a creator, Delibes fits into the line of writers for whom the novel
should be, somehow, a reflection of life. In his own words, a novel requires, at least, a man, a landscape, a passion; without these - he says - there can be no novel. His work is fundamental intertested in questions which concern us in daily life, and the themes he handles reflect a social and human background. Among the constant themes of his work, death, nature, the dislike of war, hunting, childhood and the esential solitude of the human being may be highlighted. The defence of nature and of the art of hunting have been, furthermore, two passions which have concerned him all through his life.

As far as his technique and style are concerned, scholars of Delibes´ work distinguish various phases: the first, characterised by the abundance of descriptions and the use of clearly traditional narrative frameworks; the second, in which his language is trimmed down, giving it great agility, perception and simplicity; and the third, in which the writer dives into a more symbolic, singular and personal world, with more complex ideas, to develop themes such as the dehumanization of contemporary man and the criticism of literature from literature itself, using, to do this, the most varied resources of the experimental novel.

Among the more than fifty titles which he has published are: "El
camino" (1950), "Mi idolatrado hijo Sisí" (1953), "Diario de un cazador" (1955), "Diario de un emigrante" (1957), "Las ratas" (1962), "La hoja roja" (1962), "Cinco horas con Mario" (1967), "Parábola del náufrago" (1970), "El príncipe destronado" (1973), "Las guerras de nuestros antepasados" (1975), "El disputado voto del señor Cayo" (1978), "Los santos inocentes" (1981), "Madera de héroe" (1987) and "Mi vida al aire libre" (1989). He has also written volumes of short stories, such as "Siestas con viento sur" (1959), "La caza de la perdiz roja" (1963) and "Viejas historias de Castilla la Vieja" (1987) and other, travel works, such as "Europa, parada y fonda" (1963), "USA y yo" (1966) and "La primavera de Praga" (1968).

Six of his novels have been adapted for cinema: "El camino"(1962); "Mi idolatrado hijo Sisí", under the title "Retrato de familia" (1976); "El príncipe destronado" with the name "La guerra de Papá" (1977); the excellent "Los santos inocentes", by Mario Camús; "El disputado voto del señor Cayo" in 1986 and later, "La sombra del ciprés es alargada". "Cinco horas con Mario" and "La guerra de nuestros antepasados", adapted for theatre, have been great hits, played by Lola Herrera and José Sacristán. Member of the Academia de la Lengua since 1974, and doctor "honoris causa" of the Universities of Saarbrucken (German Federal Republic), Valladolid and the Complutense University of Madrid, in 1984 he obtained the "Libro de Oro" Prize, granted by the Asociación Española de Gremios y Asociaciones de Libreros. He is also winner of the National Literature Prize, Crititics´ Prize (1962), and the "Castilla y León" and "Ciudad de Barcelona" Prizes for Literature.