José Ángel Valente, poet, essay writer and university teacher, was born in Orense on the 25th April 1929. He began to study Law at the University of Santiago de Compostela, subsequently transferring to Madrid, where he graduated in Romance Philology in 1954, with an extraordinary prize.

He travelled abroad in 1955 and taught Spanish Language and Literature for various years at the University of Oxford, where he obtained the degree of Master of Arts. From 1958 on he lived in Geneva, where he worked as a teacher and international civil servant in the UNO. Between 1982 and 1985 he lived in Paris, where he ran UNESCO´s Spanish translation service. In 1986 he settled in Almería, alternating stays in Paris and Geneva. He is still involved in teaching, giving classes, as a visiting lecturer, in universities such as that of Irvine, in California, USA.

Although his first poems were published when he was still a student, Valente became known in the literary world when he won he the Adonis Prize for Poetry, in 1954, with his book "A modo de esperanza". Belonging, in age and output, to what is known as the Fifties, or mid-century, generation, he began as an ironic, observant poet, until, after "El inocente" in 1970, his poetry acquired an epigrammatic and conceptual tone. Theoretical transpositions, cultivated and at times cryptical vocabulary, irony and sarcasm characterise this new phase.

Nonetheless, Valente has never accepted the limitations implied by being grouped into a given literary tendency represented by a limited number of writers. In his own words, "the notion of contemporaneity has to be shattered. At some point, the writer has the option of absolute solitude, of having no contemporaries."

Nonetheless, Valente has never accepted the limitations implied by being grouped into a given "realist" literary tendency of his predecessors, while not abandoning their ethical commitment, and also accentuating the battle for a specifically literary language.

Together with the aforementioned books, the following are outstanding among his works. "Poemas de Lázaro" (1960), with which he won the Critics´ prize, "La memoria y los signos" (1967), "Breve son" (1968), "Presentación y memorial para un monumento" (1970), "Interior con figuras" (1976), "Material memoria" (1979), "Tres lecciones de tinieblas" (1980), with which he won the Critics´ Prize again, "Sete cántigas de alén" (1981), "Punto cero" (1981), "Mandorla" (1982), "El fulgor" (1983) and "Al Diós del lugar" (1989).

Apart from his poetical works, which in their first stage were along the lines of the "teacher poets" such as Salinas or Gerardo Diego, and in the second phase, what is called "poetry of silence," José Ángel Valente has written narrative texts and prose poems such as "Número trece" (1971) and "El fin de la edad de plata" (1973). He has also published literary essays: "Las palabras de la tribu" (1971), "Ensayo sobre Miguel de Molinos" (1974) and "La piedra y el centro" (1983).

He was court- martialled in 1972, as it was considered that concepts in the short story "El uniforme del general" ("The general´s uniform"), in the book "Número trece", were offensive to the army. As he then lived in Geneva, he was declared in contempt of court.

In 1989 he published a new edition of the "Guía espiritual de Miguel de Molinos". He has also contributed to magazines such as "Índice", "Ínsula", "Revista de Occidente" or "Poesía", and in the daily press, above all in "El País" and in the culture supplement of "Diario 16".

In 1989 he received the "Pablo Iglesias" Foundation Prize. His poetical work has been widely translated into French, but also into other European languages, such as English, Italian or German.