Francisco Ayala

Francisco Ayala (born March 16, 1906, Granada, Spain—died November 3, 2009, Madrid) was a Spanish novelist and sociologist whose literary works examined the abuse of power and its moral implications for individuals and society.

Ayala received a law degree from the University of Madrid in 1929, at which time he had already published the novel Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espíritu (1925; “Tragicomedy of a Man Without Spirit”) and the story Cazador en el alba (1930; “Hunter at Dawn”). These works are psychological studies that make a strong use of metaphor but display little interest in narrative description. Ayala studied in Berlin in 1929–30 and received a doctoral degree in law from the University of Madrid in 1931, and in 1933 he joined that university’s faculty. He went into exile during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), and when the Spanish Republic fell in 1939 he went to Argentina, where he taught and published a sociology textbook. In 1949 he published a book of short stories, Los usurpadores (“The Usurpers”), in which he examines the innate immorality of one person subjugating another to his will. This theme is treated in the context of the history of Spain, and the finest story in the book—“El hechizado” (“The Bewitched”)—is a macabre story of the 17th-century Spanish empire and its infirm ruler, Charles II. La cabeza del cordero (1949; “The Lamb’s Head”) is a collection of short stories on similar themes, this time centring on the Spanish Civil War.

In 1950 Ayala joined the faculty of the University of Puerto Rico, and in 1958 he began a professorial career in the United States. He continued to write in Spanish, developing, as in Tecnología y libertad (1959; “Technology and Freedom”), his ideas on reconciling individual conscience to society and on restating ancient moral values for modern times. The collapse of moral order and the hopelessness of human relations in society were themes in his two long pessimistic and satirical novels, Muertes de perro (1958; Death as a Way of Life) and El fondo del vaso (1962; “The Bottom of the Glass”). His later works include the short-story collections El jardín de las delicias (1971; “Garden of Delights”) and El jardín de las malicias (1988; “Garden of Malice”). In 1991 he received the Cervantes Prize, Spain’s highest award for contributions to Spanish literature. From 1982 to 2006 Ayala published several volumes of memoirs under the title Recuerdos y olvidos (“Memories and Forgetfulness”).