Juan Jose Millas

Juan José Millás García or Juanjo Millás (Valencia, January 31, 1946) is a Spanish writer and journalist. His narrative work, translated into more than twenty languages, has been recognized with the most prestigious literary awards in the Hispanic world. Within this work, he is the inventor of a new genre: the article. He combines his work as a narrator and columnist with that of a lecturer, director of writing workshops and a collaborator in radio programs.

Biography

Son of the Valencian inventor Vicente Millás Mossi and Cándida García, he spent the first years of his life in Valencia. In 1952 he moved with his family to Madrid, to the neighborhood of Prosperidad, where he has lived for most of his life.He was a student at the Claret school and completed his pre-university studies at the Ramiro de Maeztu institute. He attended class at night, while during the day he worked in a savings bank.

Already at the university, he enrolled in the Philosophy and Letters career, in the branch of Pure Philosophy, but he dropped out in the third year. He started working at the Iberia airline, first in an administrative position and later in the communication office. Simultaneously, he began to collaborate in the press. Given the success achieved, he decided to dedicate himself entirely to literature.

In 1987, he married the psychologist Isabel Menéndez Álvarez for the second time, with whom he had his second child. At the beginning of the 1990s, he began to collaborate in the newspaper El País and in other media.

Trajectory

Her childhood avid reading was followed by her vocation for writing. In 1975 she published her first novel, Cerberus Are the Shadows, for which she won the Sesame Prize. It is a long letter to her father that painfully and compassionately recalls her life. Thanks to an enthusiastic member of the jury, Juan García Hortelano, she was later able to publish Visión del ahogado (1977) and El jardín vacío (1981) in Alfaguara publishing house. But her work began to gain popularity with Wet paper (1983), commissioned by Anaya, whose Children and Youth division managed to have it included among the recommended readings for the secondary education curriculum.

Juan Jośe Millás in 1979

In 1990 he began to collaborate in the newspaper El País. His columns already showed a constant concern for language, the search for meaning and the defense of the person against powers and markets.

His aspect as a radio communicator is also noteworthy. In the program La ventana of Cadena SER, she coordinated a section in which she encouraged listeners to send short stories about words in the dictionary; Due to his extensive participation, he was building a glossary.Currently, he collaborates in the program directed by Javier del Pino A vivir que son dos días .

In his vast work, mostly psychological introspection, and translated into more than twenty languages, any daily event can be turned into a fantastic event. To frame this type of narration, he created a personal literary genre, that of the articles: in these little stories, which the author himself defines as "chronicles of daily surrealism dosed in pearls", a banal daily episode it becomes a kind of crack through which the very concept of what we call reality escapes.

In her novel Laura y Julio she captured her main obsessions: the problem of identity, symmetry, prosperous solitude, other habitable spaces within one's own space, love, fidelity and jealousy.

Millás has received numerous recognitions and awards, among which are some of the most important in Spain, such as Nadal, Planeta and Nacional de Narrativa, the last two for his autobiographical novel El mundo; This book of childhood memories, almost adolescence, tells the story of a boy who lives on a street and whose dream is to escape from it.

Work

The list that follows contains the bibliographic data of the work of Juan José Millás grouped according to four categories. Within each of them, in chronological order, the first edition registered by the ISBN Agency in Spain is detailed for each book.

Novels

• Cerbero are the shadows (1975). Barcelona: Reading point. 978-84-663-1730-6
• Vision of drowning (1990). Barcelona: Destination. 978-84-233-1765-3
• The empty garden (1981). Madrid: Lega. 978-84-85701-33-9
• Wet paper (1988). Madrid: Anaya. 978-84-7525-142-4
• Lyrics dead (1984). Barcelona: Destination. 978-84-233-2219-0
• The mess of your name (1987). Barcelona: Reading Circle. 978-84-226-2959-7
• Loneliness was this (1992). Barcelona: Reader Circle. 978-84-226-4238-1
• Back home (1990). Barcelona: Destination. 978-84-233-1913-8
• Fool, dead, bastard and invisible (1995). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-8170-8
• The alphabetical order (1998). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-8386-3
• Don't look under the bed. (2000). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-7862-3
• Two women in Prague (2002). Barcelona: Espasa Libros. 978-84-670-0128-0
• Laura and Julio (2006). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-1228-4
• The world (2007). Barcelona: Planet. 978-84-08-07692-6
• What I know about the little men (2010). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-1296-3
• Crazy woman (2014). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-2124-8
• From the shadow (2016). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-2738-7
• My true story (2017). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-3242-8
• Nobody sleeps (2018). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-3184-0
• Life at a time (2019). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-3467-4
• Just smoke. (2023). Barcelona: Alfaguara 978-84-204-7311-6

Compilations of short stories

• "Primavera de luto" and other stories (1992). Barcelona: Destination. 978-84-233-2097-4
• «She imagines» and other obsessions of Vincent Holgado (1994). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-8141-8
• Counts to the weather (1997). Madrid: Acento. 978-84-483-0192-7
• «The incompetent widow» and other stories (1998). Barcelona: Plaza & Janés. 978-84-01-57062-9
• Tales. Barcelona: Debolsillo. 978-84-8450-512-9
• Numbers pairs, odds and idiots (2001). Barcelona: Alba. 978-84-8428-121-4. Illustrated by Forges.
• Articuentos (2002). Barcelona: Alba. 978-84-8428-098-9
• Round-trip reports (2002). Seville: Concierge for Development. 978-84-8095-318-4
• Counts of disoriented adulterers (2003). Barcelona: Lumen. 978-84-264-1341-3}}
• The city (2005). Madrid: H Kliczkowski. 978-84-96304-79-6
• The objects call us (2008). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-1261-1
• Complete articles (2011). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-0942-0
• Unfaithful and adulterated (2014). Madrid: Nordic. 978-84-16112-22-7
• An impossible vocation. Full stories (2019). Barcelona: Seix Barral. 978-84-322-3584-9

Articles

• Something that concerns you (1995). Barcelona: Aguilar. 978-84-03-59481-4
• Body and prosthesis (2000). Barcelona: Aguilar. 978-84-03-09199-3
• All are questions. (2005). Barcelona: Peninsula. 978-84-8307-657-6
• The eye of the lock (2006). Barcelona: Peninsula. 978-84-8307-720-7
• Shadows over shadows (2007). Barcelona: Peninsula. 978-84-8307-768-9

Nonfiction

• There's something that's not like they say: Nevenka Fernández's case against reality (2004). Barcelona: Aguilar. 978-84-03-09471-0
• Maria and Mercedes: two stories about work and family life (2005). Barcelona: Peninsula. 978-84-8307-690-3
• A map of reality: anthology of texts of the encyclopedia Espasa (2005). Barcelona: Espasa Libros. 978-84-670-2009-0
• Life at the limit (2012). Barcelona: Seix Barral. {{ISBNTITE978-84-322-1049-5
• Life told by a sapiens to a neandertal (2020). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-3965-5. Coescrito junto con Juan Luis Arsuaga.
• Death told by a sapiens to a neandertal (2022). Barcelona: Alfaguara. 978-84-204-6105-2. Coescrito junto con Juan Luis Arsuaga.

Awards and Honors

His work as a writer and communicator has been recognized by numerous awards:

• 1974: Sésamo Prize for novel by Cerbero are the shadows
• 1990: Premio Nadal de novel, de Ediciones Destination, por Loneliness was this
• 1999: Award of Marian Journalism of Cavia, of the editorial group Prensa Española for «The Real»
• 2000: Journalistic Award of the Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation
• 2002: Novela Spring Award, awarded by Espasa and Ambito Cultural, by Two women in Prague
• 2002: Miguel Delibes National Journalism Award by the Valladolid Press Association, for the article "Errores"
• 2005: Francisco Cerecedo Journalism Award, Association of European Journalists
• 2007: Novela Planet Award, from the homonymous editorial, by The world
• 2008: National Narrative Prize, Ministry of Culture and Sports of Spain, for The world
• 2009: Don Quixote Prize for Journalism, sponsored by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha, for its article «An adverb occurs to anyone»
• 2010: International Prize for Journalism Manuel Vázquez Montalbán in the category of Cultural and Political Journalism

Likewise, in 2006 he was named doctor honoris causa by the University of Turin, and the following year, by the University of Oviedo.