David Uclés
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David Uclés | |
|---|---|
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| Born | January 21, 1990 Úbeda (Spain) |
| Citizenship | Spanish |
| Occupation | Writer, musician and illustrator |
| Movement | Magical realism |
| Awards | Nadal Prize for the Novel 2026
Andalusia Prize for Literary Criticism 2025 Dulce Chacón Prize for Spanish Narrative 2025 Andalusia Prize for Literature 2025 Cálamo Award – Book of the Year 2024 Finalist for the 6th Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize 2025 Finalist and Spanish nominee for the European Union Prize for Literature 2025 |
| Website | https://www.daviducles.com/ |
David Uclés Vílchez (Úbeda, Jaén, January 21, 1990) is a Spanish writer, musician, illustrator, and translator.
Biography
David Uclés studied linguistics (Translation and Interpreting / Master's Degree in Foreign Language Teaching) in Córdoba, Münster (Germany), and Granada, and worked as a teacher of Spanish, German, and English in Germany, France, and Switzerland. He also lived in England and spent several years in Galicia,[1] the Basque Country, and Catalonia. He currently resides in Madrid.
His works fall within the literary genre of magical realism, and his literary influences include Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez, José Saramago, Mercè Rodoreda, Miguel de Unamuno, Salman Rushdie, Edgar Hilsenrath, and Olga Tokarczuk.
In 2019, he received the Complutense Prize for Literature[2] in the narrative category for his first work, El llanto del león, a theatrical novel that recounts the last conversations between a father suffering from cancer and his ten-year-old son. The president of the jury was Luis Mateo Díez, winner of the 2023 Cervantes Prize. In 2020, he published Emilio & Octubre[3] with the Dos Bigotes publishing house, a novel that tells the love story of two men from the birth of one to the death of the other, in the near future, in which the protagonists enter three-dimensional paintings in museums and travel through art across Europe.
His third novel, La península de las casas vacías,[4][5] published by Ediciones Siruela in March 2024,[6] narrates the entire Spanish Civil War in a magical realist style. It is the result of fifteen years of work and an exhaustive journey of documentation and memory throughout Spain. In a later article, he himself commented on the novel:[7]
"Fifteen years ago, I embarked on this project: The Peninsula of Empty Houses. A thousand days after starting the manuscript, I had written five hundred pages, which would increase to eight hundred in seven years and a thousand in eleven. Over time, some publishing offers came up. But the book was never finished. The task before me was titanic. I decided not to take the civil service exam so that I could devote all my time to this Kafkaesque undertaking, and I moved to different regions of the peninsula to get to know the territory described better: Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Madrid, and Andalusia. I traveled 20,000 km following the traces of the conflict throughout the country and isolated myself for a year in the Alps to finish the manuscript, where I filled the walls of a room with notes, a whole exoskeleton composed of: a calendar of the harvests for each season of the year, a map with the provincial and road distribution of the time; the metric system used in the past and the different coins that were minted; photos of the uniforms of each side; a list of the most common names in the 1930s; demographic graphs; the evolution of the military ranks of each emblematic figure; the most common sayings and songs hummed by the people; propaganda posters of the time, newspaper clippings, the prices of food and leisure during the Second Republic, the thousand and one chronologies of the battles…"
— David Uclés
For its creation, it received the Montserrat Roig[8] and Leonardo[9] scholarships.[10]
It was awarded the Cálamo Best Book of the Year Award 2024, the Andalusia Critics' Award 2025, the Espartaco Award from the Semana Negra de Gijón for Best Historical Novel, the Kelvin 505 Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Dulce Chacón Award 2025, the Arcebispo Juan de San Clemente Literary Prize, the Festival 42 Prize for Best Novel in Spanish, the Andalucía de las Letras 2025, the El Corte Inglés Un Año de Libros 2025 Prize for Best Fiction Book, and was a finalist for the VI Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize. It was also the Spanish candidate for the 2025 European Union Prize for Literature. It reached 30 editions in less than two years and sold over 300,000 copies, becoming one of the best-selling books of 2024 and 2025.[11] The novel is being translated into 15 languages, including French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Danish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Czech, Galician, Albanian, Serbian, and Greek. It was selected as the second-best book of the year by the jury of Babelia’s annual list (2024).[12]
In addition, David Uclés has been named Favorite Son of Úbeda by the City Council of Úbeda and has won the Jaén Paraíso Interior Award granted by the Provincial Council of Jaén.
As a musician, he sings and composes on the harp, piano, accordion, and guitar. He has composed the music for various plays, documentaries, and exhibitions (Tabacalera,[13] University of Paris,[14] LesGaiCineMad).
Literary work
| Year | Title | Publishing house | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | El llanto del león (The Lion’s Cry) | Ediciones Complutense | 978-8466936767 |
| 2020 | Emilio y Octubre (Emilio and Octubre) | Editorial Dos Bigotes | 978-8412142860 |
| 2024 | La península de las casas vacías (The Peninsula of Empty Houses) | Ediciones Siruela | 978-8419942319 |
| 2026 | La ciudad de las luces muertas (City of Dead Lights) | Ediciones Destino | TBA |
Prizes
2026
- Nadal Prize for the Novel, for La ciudad de las luces muertas (City of Dead Lights).[15]
2025
- Andalusia Prize for Literary Criticism.[16]
- Finalist and Spanish nominee for the European Union Prize for Literature.
- Espartaco Prize (Semana Negra de Gijón) for Best Historical Novel.[17]
- Kelvin 505 Award for Best Fantasy Novel.[18]
- Dulce Chacón Prize for Spanish Narrative.
- Finalist for the 6th Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize.
- Arcebispo Juan de San Clemente Literary Prize.
- Festival 42 Award for Best Novel in Spanish.
- El Corte Inglés “Un Año de Libros” Award 2025 for Best Fiction Book.
- Andalusia Prize for Literature.
- Jaén Person of the Year Award (Culture).
- 9th Corazón de Olavide Award.
2024
- Spanish Ministry of Culture Grant for Literary Creation, for Niños jugando en las ruinas (Children Playing in the Ruins).
- Cálamo Award – Book of the Year (2024), for La península de las casas vacías (The Peninsula of Empty Houses).[19]
2022
- Montserrat Roig Literary Creation Grant, awarded by the Barcelona City Council, for La península de las casas vacías (The Peninsula of Empty Houses).
- Leonardo Grant for Literary Creation and Performing Arts, BBVA Foundation, for La península de las casas vacías (The Peninsula of Empty Houses).[9]
2021
- Cristina Tomi Short Narrative Prize, awarded by the Hispano-Romanian Association “Salva”: First Mention for La filósofa en el café y el pintor en el prostíbulo (The Philosopher in the Café and the Painter in the Brothel).
2020
- Honorary Mention (Accésit), 10th Dr. Pedro Zarco Short Story Prize, Aula Social of Hospital Clínico San Carlos, for Bicardio Reis.
2019
- Complutense Prize for Literature, for El llanto del león (The Lion’s Cry).[20]
References
- ↑ "David Uclés, el autor andaluz de uno de los libros del año que siempre vuelve en verano a Santiago y ahora sorprende tocando la campana de la Catedral". La Voz de Galicia (in español). 2024-07-23. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Tribuna Complutense :: UCM". www.ucm.es. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Emilio y Octubre". Editorial Dos Bigotes (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Boquin, Cesar (2024-07-23). "David Uclés". Centroamérica Cuenta (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Babelia (2024-04-22). "Las 30 recomendaciones de 'Babelia' para el Día del Libro de 2024". El País (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Ediciones Siruela". www.siruela.com. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Uclés, David (2025-02-01). "Alegorías sobre los traumas de un país: novela larga y realismo mágico". Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Edición 2022 - Becas Montserrat Roig y Becas Carme Montoriol". Ciutat de la literatura (in español). 2022-03-10. Archived from the original on 2022-08-15. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "David Uclés Vílchez, becario Leonardo 2022 en Creación Literaria". Red Leonardo (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ G. Matute, Fran (2024-09-01). "Otra maldita novela sobre la guerra civil". Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Blackwater, Joana Marcús y David Uclés: bestsellers bien". elDiario.es (in español). 2024-10-23. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Babelia (2024-12-14). "Los 50 mejores libros de 2024". El País (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Página Dos - Programa cultural en RTVE Play (in español). 2016-05-17. Retrieved 2026-01-10 – via www.rtve.es.
- ↑ "From one world to another / D'un monde à l'autre". K L A U S F R U C H T N I S. 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Press, Europa (2026-01-06). "David Uclés gana el Premio Nadal 2026 con la novela 'La ciudad de las luces muertas'". www.europapress.es. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ AAEC (2025-04-01). "DAVID UCLÉS, IRENE REYES-NOGUEROL Y JUAN JOSÉ CASTRO OBTIENEN EL XXXI PREMIO ANDALUCÍA DE LA CRÍTICA DE NOVELA, RELATO Y POESÍA RESPECTIVAMENTE". ASOCIACIÓN ANDALUZA DE ESCRITORES Y CRÍTICOS LITERARIOS (in español). Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Premio Espartaco (Novela Histórica)". Pamibalan. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "Inicio | Kelvin505" (in español). 2025-05-13. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ Press, Europa (2025-01-13). "'La península de las casas vacías', de David Uclés, elegido Libro del año 2024 en los Premios Cálamo". www.europapress.es. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
- ↑ "El llanto del león | Ediciones Complutense". www.ucm.es. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
External links
This article "David Uclés" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace.