Camilo José Cela Chair of Hispanic Studies

The chair is directed by Adolfo Sotelo Vázquez, professor of History of Spanish Literature at the University of Barcelona, in whose research dedication, within the narrative of the twentieth century, the figure of Camilo José Cela has occupied a very prominent place in recent years. He is currently working on a biography and a compilation of interviews with Camilo José Cela.

In 2020 the UCJC celebrates its twentieth anniversary and on this occasion has increased its heritage, paying tribute to the personality and work of Camilo José Cela with the acquisition of the handwritten notebooks of THE COLOR OF THE MORNING.

He coordinated the International Symposium “Cela, cien años más”, held at Camilo José Cela University in May 2016, the proceedings of which were published by UCJC in 2017. He has edited several works by Cela, including La familia de Pascual Duarte and La colmena, and has published several books on the personality and work of CJC (Camilo José Cela. Perfiles de un escritor, Renacimiento, 2008).

He is the author of numerous editions and studies on Spanish literature of the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has edited works by Juan Valera, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Pérez Galdós, Clarín, Unamuno and Martín Gaite. He has published studies on Giner, Galdós, Clarín, Yxart, Pardo Bazán, Rafael Altamira, Rubén Darío, Unamuno, Baroja, Azorín, Valle-Inclán, Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Ortega, Américo Castro, Gabriel Miró, Pedro Salinas, Lorca, Cernuda, Valente, Claudio Rodríguez, Torrente Ballester, Cunqueiro, Marsé, Luis Mateo Díez, etc. He has supervised more than thirty doctoral theses. He has been a regular contributor to La Vanguardia as a literary and cultural critic since 1984. His latest publications include De Cataluña y España (Relaciones literarias y culturales, 1868-1960) (Universitat de Barcelona, 2014), Camilo José Cela. La forja de un escritor (Fundación Banco Santander, 2016) Variaciones Cela (Universitat de Barcelona, 2018) and the preliminary study to the edition of Fortunata y Jacinta (Penguin Clásicos, 2019).

CELA One Hundred Years More

• The prolongation of the previous scenarios in the cultural and literary context of the figure of CJC in Spain in the second half of the 20th century: contemporary novels, contemporary journalism, contemporary art, cultural enterprises, etc.

These tasks will be carried out with the collaboration of the Camilo José Cela Foundation, an essential institution for research, teaching and dissemination of the CJC universe.

The Chair has a highly recognized Scientific Committee made up of:

Germán Gullón, Universiteit van Amsterdam; David Henn, University College London; Gonzalo Navajas, University of Irvine; Luis Iglesias Feijoo, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
José Mª Paz Gago, University of A Coruña; Ana María Plata Tasende, Rosalía de Castro Institute; Olivia Rodríguez González, University of A Coruña.
Gonzalo Sobejano, Columbia University ; Dolores Troncoso, Universidad de Vigo ; Jorge Urrutia, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid ; Darío Villanueva Prieto, Real Academia Española/ Universidad Santiago de Compostela.

The Camilo José Cela Foundation of Iria Flavia (A Coruña) and Camilo José Cela University (Madrid) collaborate in these tasks, the former because it is the living memory of the legacy of the writer’s works and days, and the latter because Camilo José Cela was part of the founding spirit and Honorary Rector of the university that bears his name.

Marina Castaño de Cela, president of the CJC Foundation, and Felipe Segovia, president of the CJC University, as well as its Rector, wish to maintain an intense collaboration in order to preserve the memory of the oceanic richness of the brilliant writer’s multifaceted personality. One of the channels of collaboration of the CJC Foundation and the CJC University is the Yearbook of Celiac Studies which, from the safe harbor of the Camilo José Cela University Chair of Hispanic Studies, will sail the seas of university research every year, as it has been doing since 2005, to give full notice of the celiac work of scholars and researchers from around the world.

The Yearbook of Celian Studies begins a new journey in 2008. From the Camilo José Cela Chair of Hispanic Studies at CJC University, I am very pleased to invite professors, researchers and scholars to collaborate in the open pages of the ANNUARIO.

Adolfo Sotelo Vázquez
CJC Chair Director

In 1934 he began studying medicine at the Complutense University, but soon abandoned it to attend, in the new Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, the literature classes of Pedro Salinas, to whom he entrusted his first poems. He also studied law in Madrid. In January 1942 he finished his first novelLa familia de Pascual Duarte. Pío Baroja, who had refused to write the prologue, frightened by the harshness of its subject matter, declared that it was a very good novel. Cela abandoned his law studies and his job to devote himself entirely to literature.

In June 1946, the writer traveled to the Alcarria, taking several notes that will serve for the elaboration of his first travel book, Viaje a la Alcarria, published in 1948. A keen painter, in 1947 he exhibited a collection of his paintings at the Clan gallery in Madrid. In 1951, La colmena was published in Buenos Aires; the work was banned in Spain. In 1954 he moved his residence to Palma de Mallorca. In April 1956 Cela founded and edited the magazine Papeles de Son Armadans, which was published until 1979, and which constituted the cultural reference of Spain at the time.

On February 21, 1957, sponsored by Aleixandre, Marañón and Calvo-Sotelo, he was elected to seat Q in the Real Academia Española. On May 26 he read his acceptance speech, which was answered by Dr. Gregorio Marañón.

In 1964 Cela was awarded an honorary doctorate by Syracuse University, the first of a long list of universities to grant him such a degree, three of which were Spanish (Santiago de Compostela, Palma de Mallorca and Complutense). That same year, together with his brothers, he founded Editorial Alfaguara.

On June 15, 1977, by Royal Appointment, Cela was appointed Senator in the first Cortes Generales of the democratic transition, participating in the drafting of the constitutional text. In 1980 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabel La Católica, and in 1992 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos III. On April 18, 1982 he received the title of Favorite Son of Padrón and on April 22 he was named Honorary Member of the Royal Galician Academy. On August 24 of the same year he was named Honorary Postman by H.M. The King. In 1983 his novel Mazurca para dos muertos was published, and in 1984 he received the National Literature Award for this work. In the same year he received the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Catalan Government.

In 1987 he received the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm, “for his rich and intense prose, which, with restrained compassion, forms a provocative vision of the helplessness of the human being”.

In 1991 the King and Queen of Spain inaugurated the Camilo José Cela Foundation in Iria Flavia. In 1992 he received the “Mariano de Cavia” journalism award. In 1994 he received the Planeta Prize for his work La cruz de San Andrés. He was also awarded the UNESCO Picasso Medal. In 1995 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize. In March of the same year, the first issue of a new magazine was published: El Extramundi y los papeles de Iria Flavia, edited by the Camilo José Cela Foundation. In 1996 H.M. King Juan Carlos granted him, on the day of his eightieth birthday, the title of Marquis of Iria Flavia. The motto that accompanies the coat of arms of the marquisate is “He who resists, wins”. On May 24 of that year he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Work, and on September 26 he was appointed full member of the Royal Galician Academy of Sciences.

In 1999, he laid the foundation stone of Camilo José Cela University in Madrid, of which he was Honorary Rector for Life, and where the “Camilo José Cela” chair is currently in force. In the same year he published what would be his last novel, Madera de boj.

On January 17, 2002, he passed away in Madrid. His mortal remains were transferred to the Foundation’s headquarters in Iria Flavia, and he was buried in the Adina cemetery.

More information about the life and work of Camilo José Cela can be found at www.cervantesvirtual.com.