Author of works such as, 'Últimas tardes con Teresa' (Last Afternoons with Teresa) and 'Ronda del Guinardó' (Round of Guinardo), this Catalonian author won the prestigious award, Premio Cervantes in 2008.

The best about Juan Marsé is what we do not know about him.  That which he chose to leave in its place, without airing it, because it belongs to one’s own self.  Because in order to be who you want to be, you must swim against the current several times and it would be in bad taste to go around complaining about past wrongs and how you overcame them even when the future was bleak.

The biography of Juan Marsé, who died two days ago at the age of 87 in Sant Pau de Barcelona Hospital, has a lot to do with the battle against destiny. Marsé was Marsé. Exactly who he wanted to be. And from him comes a literary work that grew to the beat of the conquest for one's place in the world, without following a strait path, but one full of twists and turns.

He fought on different fronts, but always under the same condition: not giving up on his ideas. The crazy manipulation of the independence movement was his last rejection. He was a Catalonian who wrote in Spanish because it is possible to combine realities without fear.