Julio Llamazares

Julio Llamazares was born in Vegamián, a small village in the region of León.  At the age of twelve he left the mountain area, attended a boarding school in Madrid and then studied law. Today Llamazares works as a writer, journalist and scriptwriter.

After two poetry volumes which were published under the titles of ‘La lentitud de los bueyes’ (1979) and ‘Memoria de la nieve’ (1982), his successful debut as a novel writer came out in 1985 ‘Luna de lobos’.

Llamazares had his literary breakthrough with the novel ‘La lluvia amarilla’ in 1988.  The novel is about Andrés, an old man who is the last inhabitant of a forsaken village in the Pyrenees.  Andrés reminds the former vitality of this place and contemplates about forgetting, death, and loneliness.  With the story of the dying village, Llamazares has depicted a concise development of Spanish society in a bribingly direct speech. Hundreds of villages have disappeared in the last decades because the inhabitants have moved to the cities. In the first three years after its publication, ‘La lluvia amarilla’ was already re-published 15 times.

In the autobiographical novel ‘Escenas de cine mudo’ (1994), the narrator returns to Olleros, the place of his childhood.  After the death of his mother he finds a photo album with old black and white photos.  With the help of the yellowed photos he goes back to his past and describes, in loosely connected scenes, his experiences from the view of a child, thus bestowing an insight into the social history of the region.

Llamazares holds a special place in Spanish contemporary literature.  He belongs to the few authors who concern themselves with rural Spain, the remote areas and the decline of damned mountain villages. With his unassuming and convincingly told stories of everyday life, he plays a large part in the existence of this world not being forgotten in the general frenzy of  modernization.

Llamazares has published collections of stories, such as ‘En mitad de ninguna parte’ (1981) and chronicles (‘El Entierro de Genarin’, 1998).  Furthermore, he edited an Anthology about the city of Madrid, which came out as ‘Los viajeros de Madrid’ in 1998. Articles he wrote as a journalist are collected in ‘En Babia’ (1991) and ‘Nadie escucha’ (1995).  Llamazares’ travel reports about forgotten regions and districts were published as ‘El río del ovido’ (1990) and ‘Trás-os-Montes’ (1998). He also wrote filmscripts and extended reportages – among these, one about Berlin. Recently, his novel “El cielo de Madrid” (2005) was published. The author lives in Madrid and León.

© international literature festival berlin

La lentitud de los bueyes. Memoria de la nieve
Ediciones Hiperión
Madrid, 1982
 
El entierro de Genarín : evangelio apócrifo del último heterodoxo español 
Endymion
Madrid, 1988
 
El rio del olvido
Seix Barral
Barcelona, 1990
 
Wolfsmond
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt/Main, 1991
Übersetzung: Wilfried Böhringer
 
Der gelbe Regen
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt/Main, 1991
Übersetzung: Wilfried Böhringer
 
Stummfilmszenen
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt/Main, 1998
Übersetzung: Willi Zurbrüggen
 
Los viajeros de Madrid
Ollero y Ramos
Madrid, 1998
 
Trás-os-Montes
Santillana
Madrid, 1998
 
Cuaderno del Duero
Edilesa
León, 1999
 
El cielo de Madrid
Santillana Ediciones Generales
Madrid, 2005
 
 
Übersetzer: Wilfried Böhringer, Willi Zurbrüggen