Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio (born 4 December 1927 in Rome) is a Spanish writer.[1] His father Rafael Sánchez Mazas, a minor writer himself, was a founder and leader of Falange.
Sánchez Ferlosio won the Nadal Award for his novel El Jarama, a realistic description of a weekend party turned awkward. He contributed to the awakening of Spanish literature after the end of the Civil War, working with young writers such as Juan Goytisolo or Ana Maria Matute.[2]
But after the success of his first book, he renounced writing for twenty years. He never expressed the reasons of his silence, but for many critics it was a form of silent opposition to Franco's dictatorship.
He came back to literature with essays on cultural issues. He only came back to fiction in 1986 with a strange book, El testimonio de Yarfoz, set in an imaginary land. In 2004 he was awarded the Premio Cervantes for his literary oeuvre.[3][4]