Spanish writer of literature for children, the only one of his country that has received the Andersen Prize.

He was born in Madrid and after the death of his mother, in 1920, he was in a difficult economic situation until the point of having to wander the streets, until he entered the orphanage of "El Pardo", a municipality next to Madrid.

He soon moved through other institutions, and in them he learned Typing and Shorthand. At seventeen years of age he obtained work as a stenographer in the City Council of Madrid. In 1934, he published his first story book "El hombre de la bufanda".

In 1939, after the Spanish Civil War, he became a journalist in the newspaper "Arriba", the Spanish phalanger organ, of which he got to be assistant director, although also collaborating on the daily "Pueblo".

In 1957 he obtained the National Prize of Literature and in 1968 the Medal Hans Christian Andersen.

The number of his works is numerous, and his story "Marcelino Pan y Vino" (1952), has been published more than one hundred editions in different languages. He wrote the script for the film The Miracle of Marcelino (1955), directed in 1955 by Ladislao Vajda that achieved a full success at its time.

He later wrote other books as "Historias menores de Marcelino Pan y Vino" (1953) and "Aventura en el cielo de Marcelino Pan y Vino" (1954).

In the rest of his work can be emphasized "¡Adiós, Josefina!" (1962) (Josephina the Whale (1979)), Ladis, un gran pequeño (1967), and "Cosas de ratones y conejos" (1981).

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José María Sánchez Silva

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