Maruja Torres

María Dolores Torres Manzanera (Barcelona, March 16, 1943), better known as Maruja Torres, is a Spanish journalist and writer (former collaborator in the news section). opinion of the newspaper El País), winner of the Planeta and Nadal awards. She has been a war correspondent in Lebanon, Panama and Israel and has covered many great events in contemporary history. She resides in Barcelona (Spain). From October 25, 2013 to January 2016, she writes her opinion column in eldiario.es.

Biography

Born in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona, from a very humble Murcian family, she learned shorthand typing and accounting notions in a night school and began working on a trial basis in the Capitol department store; at six months she was already fixed. At the age of 14, she met Terenci Moix and her sister Ana María, with whom she became friends and with whom she shared a passion for cinema. He also maintained another friend from the Raval neighborhood throughout his life: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, who later asked him for his collaboration in Por Favor. He later worked in various offices as a secretary, and began journalism at the 21 years old (1964), working as an editorial secretary at La Prensa, despite having no academic training in said field and not even a certificate of primary studies, thanks to the recommendation of the writer Carmen Kurtz. He soon collaborated in various other publications, such as the magazines Garbo, Fotogramas, Por Favor, El Papus, La Calle and, between 1979 and 1981, in two key headlines of the time: the newspaper Tele eXprés and Mundo Diario.

Autograph. Madrid Book Fair, 1997

In 1981, she left Barcelona, where she had gained fame as a pink or frivolous journalist, to start over from scratch in Madrid. From 1982 to 1984 she contributed to El País and worked for TVE; As before for Fotogramas, he interviewed notable personalities for El País: Luis Alcoriza, Manuel Puig, Anthony Burgess, Joseph Losey, Giorgio Strehler, Doris Lessing, Susan Sontag, Meryl Streep, Patricia Highsmith, John Le Carré, Bette Davis and her favorite, that of Marcello Mastroianni, which she never published, and left El País to go on to work at Diario 16, whose daily column was one of the most widely read in the press at the time. Many of his most remembered works from then were investigative journalism, such as infiltrating the gypsy ethnic group or the Legion, both in 1986. In 1984 he had signed the Manifesto against the Tintin and Hergé exhibition and by extension the clear line. Two years later he returned to El País.

His foray into literature began in 1986, with the publication of Oh it's him! Fantastic Journey to Julio Iglesias, followed in 1991 by Ceguera de amor, both "humorous novels" according to the author's own definition. But it was with Amor América: a sentimental journey through Latin America (1993) that she, as she confesses, learned to write.Seven years later would come the consecration with the Planeta prize for While we live .

He lived through the assassination of photographer Juantxu Rodríguez by shots fired by US troops while he was covering the information on the 1989 invasion of Panama for El País. After the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which he covered from Lebanon, he decided to settle in Beirut for a while, and it was there that he wrote Wait for me in heaven, winner of Nadal 2009. He was awarded the Creu of Sant Jordi in 2004 and the Gold Medal for Fine Arts in 2006.

Maruja Torres is also co-author, with Carles Mira, of the script for the film by this director El rey del mambo (1989).

On May 16, 2013, she left the newspaper El País moments before being fired from the "Opinion" section. From October 25, 2013 to January 2016, she wrote her opinion column in eldiario.es ^{[citation needed ]}

He currently resides in Madrid.

Works

• Metamorphosis1983
• Oh it's him! Fantastic trip to Julio Iglesias1986, humor novel
• Love blindness, 1991, humor novel
• Love America: a sentimental journey through Latin America1993
• Like a drop1995, articles
• The tick, story included in the book Barcelona, one day1998
• A heat so close, 1997, novel "desirbiographic", as defined by Torres
• Woman at war. More masters give life1999 journalistic autobiography
• The veil and tears, story included in the book Women at dawn1999
• While we live2000 novel, Planet Award
• Men of rain, 2004, novel "desirbiographic"
• The lover at war2007
• Wait for me in heaven2009 Nadal Prize
• Easy to kill, 2011, black novel set in Beirut
• No guts, 2012
• Ten times seven, 2014
• Manuela Carmena on the couch of Maruja Torres, 2015

Awards

• 1986, Victor de la Serna Award for Journalism, awarded by the Madrid Press Association.
• 1990, Francisco Cerecedo Award.
• 1998, Prize for Foreign Literature, by A heat so close.
• 2000, Planet Award in its XLIX edition, for the novel While we live.
• 2009, Nadal Prize, for the novel Wait for me in heaven.
• 2020, Luca de Tena Award, to the journalistic career.