Ramiro
Pinilla was born in Bilbao in 1923.
He won the Nadal Prize in 1960 and the National Prize of the Critics
in 1961 with the novel Las ciegas
hormigas (The Blind Ants), and
was a finalist to the Planeta Prize in 1971 with Seno (Breast). For almost three decades he voluntarily
distanced himself from the publishing industry. During that time, Pinilla
published his own works, such as En el
tiempo de los tallos verdes (In the
Age of Green Stems, 1969), Recuerda,
oh recuerda (Remember, Oh Remember,
1974), Primeras historias de la Guerra
interminable (The First Stories of the Never-ending War,
1977), La gran guerra de Doña Toda (The Great War of Mrs. Toda, 1978), Andanzas de Txiqui Baskardo (The Adventures
of Txiqui Baskardo, 1980), Quince
años (Fifteen Years, 1990), and Huesos (Bones, 1997). Pinilla returned to the publishing circuit with Verdes valles, Colinas rojas (Green Vallies, Red Hills), a trilogy
made up of the novels La tierra convulsa
(The Earth Trembles), Los cuerpos desnudos (Naked Bodies), and Las cenizas del hierro (Iron
Ashes) that won the Euskadi Prize 2005, the National Critics
Prize, and the National Prize for Narrative in 2006. That same year,
Pinilla published La higuera (The Fig Tree), a novel about the Civil
War, humiliation, and forgiveness that is currently being translated into
several languages.