The Nobel Prize in Literature 1977

• Summary
• Press Release

Nobel Prize Award Ceremony

• Award Ceremony Speech

Vicente Aleixandre

• Biographical
• Nobel Lecture
• Bibliography

• Banquet Speech
• Documentary
• Other Resources

Vicente Aleixandre

Born: 26 April 1898, Sevilla, Spain

Died: 14 December 1984, Madrid, Spain

Residence at the time of the award: Spain

Prize motivation: "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars"

Language: Spanish

Biography

Vicente Aleixandre was born in Sevilla (Spain) on April 26, 1898. He spent his childhood in Malaga and he has lived in Madrid since 1909. Studied law at the University of Madrid and at the Madrid School of Economics. Beginning in 1925 he has completely devoted himself to literature. His first book of poems, Ambit, appeared in 1928. Since that date he has written and published a score of books. In 1933, he received the National Literary Prize for his work Destruction or Love. He spent the Civil War in the Republican zone. He fell ill and remained in Madrid at the end of the conflict, silenced by the new authorities for four years. In 1944, he published The Shadow of Paradise, still maintaining his independence of the established political situation. In 1950, he became a member of the Spanish Academy. His books and anthologies have been published up to the present day. The Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature for the totality of his work in 1977.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Vicente Aleixandre died on December 14, 1984.