Juan José Millás
Juan José Millás was born on 31 January 1946 in Valencia, a city in Spain, and is a citizen of that country. He works in the Spanish language and writes across several forms, including the novel, the short story, and journalism. His education took him to the Complutense University of Madrid, where he pursued his studies and developed the intellectual grounding that would underpin his career in both fiction and the press.
As a novelist, Millás has received recognition from some of Spain's most prominent literary prizes. He won the Premio Nadal in 1990 and has also received the Premio Planeta de Novela and the National Novel Prize. Among his notable works are La mujer loca, Los objetos nos llaman, and Carta straccia. His engagement with the short story alongside the novel marks him as a writer who has worked across multiple registers of prose fiction throughout his career.
Alongside his fiction, Millás has maintained a parallel career in journalism, and that body of work has earned him formal recognition in its own right. He received the Don Quijote Journalism Prize, the Francisco Cerecedo Prize, the Miguel Delibes Journalism Prize, and the Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Award for Cultural and Political Journalism. These awards span prizes associated with different traditions of Spanish public writing, reflecting a sustained contribution to journalism alongside his work as a novelist and short story writer.
The reach of Millás's career has also extended to academic recognition beyond Spain's borders. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Turin, a distinction that connects his Spanish-language literary and journalistic output to an institutional acknowledgment in Italy. That honor, taken together with the range of fiction and journalism prizes he has accumulated over the course of his career, marks the extent of the recognition his work has received across more than one professional domain and in more than one country.
Quotes by Juan José Millás
Mi hermano mayor me despertó a medianoche para revelarme el siguiente secreto:— Dentro de poco te dirán que los Reyes Magos son los padres. Se lo dicen a todo el mundo al cumplir tu edad. No te lo creas. Los Reyes Magos existen, pero como los mayores no saben explicar su existencia, dicen eso, que son los padres.
نمت ممتلئا بهواجس،وظللت بعينين مغمضتين حتى رن المنبه.كنت أتجول بلا قبلة محددة في هوات،تبدو فيها الأفكار والكوابيس مصنوعة من المواد نفسها.رغبت مئة مرة في أن يحدث ذلك بالنهار،مثل الأطفال عندما يعانون من مخاوف ليلية،لكنه كان بالنهار بالفعل،ورغم أن الواقع اتخذ أشكاله المألوفة،ظل الرعب في مكانه محفوظا من دون لمس.
Me sorprendió la agresividad de mi hermano. Una nunca sabe lo que representa para los demás ni de qué manera gratuita se puede perder o ganar un afecto. En cualquier caso, parecía confirmar mi sensación de lejanía respecto al mundo. Mi soledad.
Mi vida, pues, parecía mutilada e inútil. Creo que durante los últimos veinte años he estado defendiéndome de los afectos sin pensar que cada una de estas defensas significaba una mutilación
(...) y en ese momento comprendí que uno no es en la vida lo que quiere, sino lo que le piden los otros.
We are all living in some sort of a hell, Elena, all of us, but we don't make someone pay the price for our deeds, do you know why? because everyone of us chooses his own hell, the one that makes him most comfortable.
Amongst the bitter fruits of life, death is not the worst by a long chalk. the worst is to live far away from oneself
Yo estaba un poco deprimido no por nada, sino porque es mi carácter. La gente deprimida detesta, por envidia, a las personas vitalistas, y el paleontólogo es uno de esos sujetos que siempre están en forma. Puedes verlo cabreado, pero nunca triste. Quizá, calculé, combate la tristeza con el cabreo.
المرء لا يعرف أبدا ما الذي يمثله للآخرين، ولا بأية وسيلة مجانية ممكن أن يكسب أو يخسر عاطفة ما.