Munoz Molina, Antonio 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born January, 1956, in Úbeda, Spain. Education: Attended the Universidad de Granada y Periodismo, Madrid, Spain.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and novelist. Instituto Cervantes, New York, NY, 2004-2005. Acted in the films Plenilunio, 1999, and El cielo abierto, 2001; also has appeared on numerous Spanish television shows.

MEMBER:

Real Academia.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Icarus Prize for Literature for Beatus ille; International Critics' Prize, 1987, and the Premio Nacional de Literatura (National Literature Award), Spain, 1988, both for Winter in Lisbon; Premio Nacional de Literatura, 1992, for El jinete polaco; Premio Euskadi de Plata Euskadi Silver Award, 1997; Prix Femina Étranger for the best foreign book published in France, 1998; Premio Mariano de Cavia (Mariano de Cavia Prize), 2003, for article "Lecciones de septiembre" ("Lessons of September").

WRITINGS:

Beatus ille (novel), Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1986, translation by Edith Grossman, published as A Manuscript of Ashes, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2007.

Diario del nautilus, Diputación Provincial de Granada (Granada, Spain), 1986.

El Robinson urbano (collection of articles; title means "The Robinson City"), Pamiela (Pamplona, Spain), 1988.

Las otras vidas, Mondadori (Madrid, Spain), 1988.

Beltenebros (novel), Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1989, translation by Peter Bush published as Prince of Shadows, Quartet Books (London, England), 1993, reprinted in Spanish, Catedra (Madrid, Spain), 2004.

El invierno en Lisboa (novel), Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1989, translation by Sonia Soto published as Winter in Lisbon, Granta Books (London, England), 1999.

Córdoba de los omeyas, Planeta (Barcelona, Spain), 1991.

El jinete polaco (novel; title means "The Polish Rider"), Planeta (Barcelona, Spain), 1991.

Los misterios de Madrid: novela, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1992.

La verdad de la Ficción, Renacimiento (Seville, Spain), 1992.

El Robinson urbano, prologue by Pere Gimferrer, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1993.

Por Qué no es útil la literatura?, Hiperion (Madrid, Spain), 1993.

Nada del otro mundo, Espasa Calpe (Madrid, Spain), 1993.

El dueño del secreto, Ollero & Ramos (Madrid, Spain), 1994.

Las apariencias, Santillana (Madrid, Spain), 1995.

Ardor guerrero, Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 1995.

(With Pierre Daix and Tomas Llorens) Picasso, 1923: Arlequín Con Espejo Y La Flauta De Pan, Fundacion Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain), 1995.

La huerta del edén: Escritos y diatribas sobre Andalucía, Ollero & Ramos (Madrid, Spain), 1996.

Plenilunio (novel), Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 1997.

El dueño del secreto, Editorial Castalia (Madrid, Spain), 1997.

Escrito en un instante, Calima Ediciones (Palma de Mallorca, Spain), 1997.

(With Felipe Hernandez Cava) El roto, Diputación Provincial (Seville, Spain), 1997.

(Author of prologue) Jorge Luis Borges, El aleph, Alianza (Madrid, Spain), 1998.

Carlota Fainberg, Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 1999.

Pura alegría, Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 1999.

La huella de unas palabras (anthology of author's works), edited, prologue, and epilogue by José Manuel Fajardo, Espasa (Madrid, Spain), 1999.

José Guerrero: El artista que vuelve, Diputación Provincial de Granada (Grenada, Spain), 2001.

Sefarad: Una novela de novelas (novel), Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 2001, translation by Margaret Sayers Peden published as Sepharad, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2003.

En ausencia de Blanca, Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 2001, translation by Esther Allen published as In Her Absence, Other Press (New York, NY), 2006.

La vida por delante, Alfaguara (Madrid, Spain), 2002.

(With Juan Villoro) Suite Europa 2002: 18 Artistas 36 obras reunidas con motivo de la presidencia Española de la unión Europea en 2002, Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (Madrid, Spain), 2002.

Ventanas de Manhattan (novel), Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 2004.

(With Max Aub) Destierro y destiempo: Dos discursos de ingreso en la academia, Editorial Pre-Textos (Valencia, Spain), 2004.

El viento de la luna (novel; title means "The Wind on the Moon"), Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 2006.

Días De Diario, prologue by Pere Gimferrer, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 2007.

Also author of screen story for film adaptation of Winter in Lisbon, 1991. Contributor to books, including Medio siglo de literatura Española: Historia del premio planeta, Fundacion Jose Manuel Lara (Seville, Spain, 2006. Columnist for El País and Die Welt.

ADAPTATIONS:

Novels adapted for film include Beltenebros, 1991, and Plenilunio, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Antonio Muñoz Molina is considered one of Spain's greatest living writers. He is the author of more than a dozen novels and numerous essays and works of journalism. "If there were a literary Hall of Fame in Spain, Antonio Muñoz Molina … would certainly have a prominent place in it," wrote Carlos Rodríguez Martorell in an article on the Criticas Web site. Writing in the Washington Post, Brigitte Weeks noted: "Molina is a fearless writer. He is not afraid of making demands on his reader's imagination." Other English-speaking reviewers also praised the author's many works and his style of writing. For example, Shofar contributor Ana Eire commented that the author's "novels have combined modern and postmodern literary technique with powerful storytelling, earning both critical acclaim and a wide popular audience while broadening the limits of traditional fiction."

In his 1997 novel Plenilunio, the author features the hunt for a serial rapist and killer of children in an unnamed small town. As the murders continue, the author delves into the lives of several characters, from a downtrodden detective and an abandoned schoolteacher raising her child alone, to a loveless forensic doctor and the killer, a fishmonger addicted to pornography. In a review in the Economist, a contributor noted that the author "is a master of mood and atmosphere, and captures the Spain of the 1990s," adding later in the same review: "This novel involves its imagined characters in a seamless plot, without forcing stylistic ploys or endless chatter on the reader." Writing in World Literature Today, Catherine G. Bellver called Plenilunio "a linguistically dense novel despite its aspects of structural disconnections, a novel full of violence with occasional moments of tenderness, and a novel that combines the coldness of police reports with the intimate feelings of the human heart. Muñoz Molina is a master at infusing emotional depth into straightforward events."

Sepharad, published in Spain as Sefarad: Una novela de novelas, tells stories of the Sephardic diaspora, the Holocaust, and Stalin's purges. "The Sepharad of the title does not refer, as it may suggest, to the history of the Spanish Jews," wrote Ana Eire in Shofar. "The word sepharad acts as a symbol for the novel. It is the place where the accused, the persecuted, the exiles can find refuge." Throughout the book, the characters find that their lives can suddenly be thrown into disaster with just a simple government or religious decree. The stories are all told by a single narrator who is suffering from leukemia and also feels expelled from the society around him. The tales feature fictional and nonfictional characters, and the author connects each story with the concept of how one's identity can be created, changed, and ultimately erased by persecution and history.

"It is a net of images and horrors, of lives seen at surprising angles, all bound to the subject of Spain—the land the rabbis identified with the biblical Sepharad—and the fearful business of leaving it," wrote Michael Pye in the New York Times Book Review. Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, referred to Sepharad as an "elegiacally beautiful" book; she went on to note in the same review that the author provides an "astute, deeply felt, and exquisitely expressive testimony to love … [and] suffering." Pye also noted in his review that, although Sepharad is called a novel, it includes many instances of fact and many actual quotes from real people, from Franz Kafka to Josef Stalin's impresario, Willi Münzenberg. Pye noted that, nevertheless, "this book is no boneless ‘meditation’; it has all the onward rush and effortfulness of an epic, and it's studded with the terrible stories you hear from acquaintances in ‘the insomniac world of travelers.’ In Margaret Sayers Peden's beautiful and fluent translation, it is almost always involving."

The author's novel En ausencia de Blanca was published in the United States in 2006 as In Her Absence. This time the author writes of a middle-aged civil servant named Mario López and his relationship with his wife, Blanca. Married for six years, the couple's relationship is passionate but not without its painful side. For one thing, Mario is content in his mundane civil servant job and focuses all of his attention and passions on Blanca. His wife, however, is into modern art and follows all the latest trends. Dominated by Blanca, Mario one day finds himself alone as his wife leaves him for another man. Although Blanca returns to Mario, he faces the fact that she is not the same woman that he once loved. In a review of In Her Absence in the Washington Post, Brigitte Weeks commented: "There is a hypnotic quality to the spare, always forward-moving rhythm of Molina's prose. Mario's limited yet intensely focused world does not let the reader take a breath for even a paragraph." Calling the novel "compelling," Francine Prose went on to write in O, the Oprah Magazine that "this slyly witty and luminous book … reveals itself as an inspired meditation on identity and illusion."

Muñoz Molina is also the author of the novel El viento de la luna, which is translated as The Wind on the Moon. The story takes place in the imaginary rural area in Spain called Mágina, which is featured in many of the author's novels. A young boy is enamored of the first mission to the moon, which represents his wish to escape into the future. Much of the story revolves around the relationship between the boy and his father. However, in one chapter, the author also features the narration of an astronaut who must wait in the space capsule while his fellow astronauts walk on the moon.

According to Muñoz Molina, the novel is autobiographical in nature and the unnamed protagonist and his father have appeared as autobiographical characters in other novels by the author. "Even though this novel is based on my life, I have modified it," the author told Carlos Rodríguez Martorell in an interview on the Criticas Web site. "It is a literary character partially based on myself. Otherwise, I would have been forced to subscribe solely to my own experience. On the other hand, who can remember a conversation they had thirty-five years ago? It is fiction pretending to be a personal confession."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 1992, review of El jinete polaco, p. 244; April 15, 1995, review of El Dueño del secreto, p. 1485; March 15, 1996, review of El jinete polaco, p. 1246; December 15, 2003, Donna Seaman, review of Sepharad, p. 728.

Book World, August 26, 2007, Brigitte Weeks, "Smitten: One of Spain's Greatest Writers Tells a Gripping Story about an Extraordinarily Dull Husband," p. 5.

Economist, February 14, 1998, review of Plenilunio, p. 16.

Entertainment Weekly, July 20, 2007, Daniel Nemet-Nejat, review of In Her Absence, p. 79.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2003, review of Sepharad, p. 1195; May 1, 2007, review of In Her Absence.

Library Journal, November 1, 2003, Harold Augenbraum, review of Sepharad, p. 125; July 1, 2007, Kristin Thiel, review of In Her Absence, p. 81.

New Yorker, September 17, 2007, review of In Her Absence, p. 99.

New York Review of Books, May 25, 2006, Daniel Mendelsohn, "The Spanish Tragedy," review of Sepharad, p. 30.

New York Times, January 1, 2004, Richard Eder, "Books of the Times; Journeys That Defined a Century," review of Sepharad.

New York Times Book Review, December 21, 2003, Michael Pye, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," review of Sepharad.

O, the Oprah Magazine, August, 2007, Francine Prose, "And I Love Her: A Husband's Obsession with His Enigmatic Wife Slides into Fantasy in This Translucent Novel of Passion, Illusion, and Social Class," p. 152.

Popular Music, May, 2005, Maarten Steenmeijer, "Other Lives: Rock, Memory and Oblivion in Post-Franco Fiction," p. 245.

Publishers Weekly, December 1, 2003, review of Sepharad, p. 42; April 16, 2007, review of In Her Absence, p. 28.

Romance Quarterly, spring, 2004, David K. Herzberger, "Representing the Holocaust: Story and Experience in Antonio Munoz Molina's Sefarad."

Shofar, summer, 2005, Ana Eire, review of Sepharad.

Times Literary Supplement, May 28, 1993, Hamish Robinson, review of Prince of Shadows, p. 23; October 15, 1999, Ophelia Field, review of Winter in Lisbon, p. 26.

Washington Post, August 26, 2007, Brigitte Weeks, "Smitten," review of In Her Absence, p. BW05.

World Literature Today, winter, 1989, William R. Risley, review of El invierno en Lisboa, p. 74; winter, 1991, William R. Risley, review of Beltenebros, p. 87; winter, 1993, David Ross Gerling, review of El jinete polaco, p. 158; spring, 1995, review of El Robinson urbano, p. 336; autumn, 1997, Catherine G. Bellver, review of Plenilunio, p. 761.

ONLINE

Criticas,http://www.criticasmagazine.com/ (March 15, 2007), Carlos Rodríguez Martorell, "Q&A; Antonio Muñoz Molina—Fact and Fiction, Organically Related."

EPDLP,http://www.epdlp.com/ (January 17, 2008), biography of author.

Escuelai.com,http://www.escuelai.com/ (January 17, 2008), biography of author.

Granta,http://www.granta.com/ (January 17, 2008), brief biography of author.

International Movie Database,http://www.imdb.com/ (January 17, 2008), information on author's film work.

PEN American Center,http://www.pen.org/ (January 17, 2008), brief biography of author.