Silva, Lorenzo 1966- (Lorenzo Manuel Silva Amador)
Silva, Lorenzo 1966- (Lorenzo Manuel Silva Amador)
PERSONAL:
Born June 7, 1966, in Madrid, Spain.
Education: Graduated from the Universidad Complutense.
ADDRESSES:
E-mail—[email protected].
CAREER:
Unión Fenosa (electricity company), Madrid, Spain, lawyer.
AWARDS, HONORS:
Ojo Crítico Prize, 1998, for El lejano país de los estanques; Nadal Prize, 2000, for El alquimista impaciente; Primavera Prize, 2004, for Carta blanca.
WRITINGS:
La sustancia interior: Novela, Huerga & Fierro (Madrid, Spain), 1996.
Alguín día, cuando pueda llevarte a Varsovia, Anaya (Madrid, Spain), 1997.
La flaqueza del bolchevique (title means "The Bolshevik's Weakness"), Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 1997.
El cazador del desierto, Anaya (Madrid, Spain), 1998.
El lejano país de los estanques (title means "The Far Country of Pools"), Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 1998.
El ángel oculto, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 1999.
El urinario, Pre-Textos (Valencia, Spain), 1999.
El alquimista impaciente (title means "The Impatient Alchemist"), Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2000.
La lluvia de París, Anaya (Madrid, Spain), 2000.
Viajes escritos y escritos viajeros, Anaya (Madrid, Spain), 2000.
El nombre de los nuestros (title means "The Name of Our Fellows"), Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2001.
La isla del fin de la suerte, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2002.
La niebla y la doncella (title means "The Mist and the Maiden"), Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2002.
Laura y el corazón de las cosas, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2002.
El déspota adolescente, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2003.
Carta blanca (title means "Carte Blanche"), Espasa (Madrid, Spain), 2004.
Nadie vale más que otro: Cuatro asuntos de Bevilacqua, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2004.
La reina sin espejo, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2005.
Líneas de sombra: Historias de criminales y policías, Ediciones Destino (Barcelona, Spain), 2005.
En tierra extraña, en tierra propia: Anotaciones de viaje, La Esfera de los Libros (Madrid, Spain), 2006.
SIDELIGHTS:
Lorenzo Silva is a lawyer who has worked as a tax advisor and auditor. In his spare time, however, he has written nearly twenty books, many of them crime or war novels, but all with a strong emotional tie to his native Spain. In an interview published in Broadsheet magazine and posted on Silva's home page, he commented about the inspiration for his writing: "I don't want to live in an ivory tower thinking about nothing other than books, writing books about books. I believe that the best stories come from the street and what a writer needs is a good eye and a good ear to see and hear what happens to the people who surround us. I want to write about subjects that matter to people."
David Ross Gerling has reviewed a number of Silva's books for World Literature Today. Writing about El nombre de los nuestros, a story of Spain's 1920s war in the western Sahara, Gerling commented: "Silva's virtual-reality descriptions let us feel what life was like in the trenches." In a review of the crime novel El alquimista impaciente, the critic stated: "In truth, it is difficult to know where detective work stops and social criticism begins, or if in Silva's latest incursion into noir both are gratifyingly part and parcel of this exhilarating, eye-opening journey into the side alleys of contemporary Madrid." Gerling described the second crime novel in a series, El lejano país de los estanques, as "good escapist reading, replete with the chic idiom of today's young professional Spaniards." After reading La niebla y la doncella, Gerling remarked: "If you read this novel, you will probably want to read the other two, and once you have read all three, you will look forward to Silva's next incursion into noir." "Carta blanca," the critic wrote in another World Literature Today review, "is a cautionary tale that exposes the utter absurdity of war and the unspeakable evils it unchains."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
World Literature Today, spring, 1999, David Ross Gerling, review of El lejano país de los estanques, p. 303; winter, 2002, David Ross Gerling, El alquimista impaciente, p. 220; spring, 2002, David Ross Gerling, review of El nombre de los nuestros, p. 237; July-September, 2003, David Ross Gerling, review of La niebla y la doncella, p. 146; May-August, 2005, David Ross Gerling, review of Carta blanca, p. 106.
ONLINE
Lorenzo Silva Home Page,http://www.lorenzo-silva.com (December 1, 2006).