Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

Writing

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

Born 1939-06-27 · Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (14 June 1939–18 October 2003) was a prolific Spanish writer from Barcelona: journalist, novelist, poet, essayist, anthologue, prologist, humorist, critic and political prisoner as well as a gastronome and a FC Barcelona supporter. Vázquez Montalbán was born in Barcelona on 14 June 1939. His parents did not register his birth until 27 July; many sources show 27 July or 14 July as his birth date. He studied Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and was also a member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. He spent 18 months in prison after attending a 1962 miner's strike. He began writing poetry in 1967. He is one of the Novísimos from Jose María Castellet. His poetic works until 1986 are collected in Memoria y deseo ("Memory and desire"). The same characteristic features of his poetry appear in his novels. Los mares del Sur, part of the Pepe Carvalho series, won the Planeta Award in 1979, bringing fame for both the writer and the fictional detective, who would later be portrayed in films, TV series and comic strips. In 1988, he wrote and published a children's book called, Escenas de la Literatura Universal y Retratos de Grandes Autores (English version as "Scenes from World Literature and Portraits of Greatest Authors"), which is illustrated by Willi Glasauer, and published by Círculo de Lectores. This children's book includes fun facts, trivia, and information accompanied by photos and Willi Glasauer's illustrations of the likes of Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Gabriel García Márquez, Hermann Hesse, Agatha Christie, Federico García Lorca, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Günter Grass, Marguerite Duras, Miguel de Cervantes, Elias Canetti, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Albert Camus, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Doris Lessing, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway. Other narrative works include narrative productions Galíndez (1991), winner of the National Narrative Award; El estrangulador (The strangler) (1994) and Erec y Enide (Erec and Enide) (2002). In 1992 he published Autobiografía del general Franco, which was awarded the 1994 international prize Premio Internacional de Literatura Ennio Flaiano. He also wrote non-literary works in Catalan, notably L'art del menjar a Catalunya (1977). For many years, he contributed columns and articles to the Madrid-based daily newspaper El País. In 1974, he wrote the libretto for Salvador Dalí's opera-poem Etre Dieu (To Be God), with music by French avant-garde composer Igor Wakhévitch. He died in Bangkok, Thailand, while returning to his home country from a speaking tour of Australia. His last book, La aznaridad, was published posthumously. Source: Article "Manuel Vázquez Montalbán" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Acting credits

Cuba, 1898: la caída del Imperio español poster
4.0

A brief account of the Spanish-American War (1898) and the end of the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Cuba, 1898: la caída del Imperio español

1992

Después de… Segunda parte: atado y bien atado poster
8.2

A history of the Spanish Transition told in first person by the main protagonists: on the one hand, the politicians, idealistic or merely opportunistic, who brought it to a successful conclusion in the tribunes and offices; on the other hand, the citizens who, in the streets, supported it sincerely or fought it with ferocity.

Después de… Segunda parte: atado y bien atado

1983

Después de… Primera parte: no se os puede dejar solos poster
8.3

A history of the Spanish Transition told in first person by the main protagonists: on the one hand, the politicians, idealistic or merely opportunistic, who brought it to a successful conclusion in the tribunes and offices; on the other hand, the citizens who, in the streets, supported it sincerely or fought it with ferocity.

Después de… Primera parte: no se os puede dejar solos

1983

Libertad provisional poster
9.0

A small-time delinquent young man and a book saleswoman at home delivery, who occasionally engage in prostitution as a derivative of her work, try a way of coexistence on the basis of mutual freedom schemes.

Libertad provisional

1976

Olímpicament mort poster
NR

A Pepe Carvalho adventure.

Olímpicament mort

1986

Words of Truth poster
6.0

The documentary looks in the life and work of Mario Benedetti, especially in his poetic work, the keys to an illustrious Montevideo. A man who has had to live several exiles and has received all the awards that this world can give. But above all, the affection of an unconditional, massive and faithful audience that follows him everywhere and pampers him every day with their applause and reading. A sad childhood, a youth full of work and reading, and a maturity full of commitments marked Benedetti. His work testifies the history, that which only artists can tell.

Words of Truth

2004

Behind the camera

Padre, patrón poster
10.0

Mister Joaquim Pelletier and his wife request the services of the private detective Pepe Carvalho to find the murderer of their only son, Mariano. As the investigations progress, Pepe finds out that Mariano was not such a model son as his father thought. He had a double life: a banker at daytime, a thug at night; he was cooperating with Jesús Arquimedes, the boss of the underworld, by doing illegal works for him. But Mariano had decided to betray Arquímedes, embezzling $500 000 of the money he was laundering in Bank Pelletier, to start a new life in the USA. Arquímedes puts pressure on Carvalho to find his money. Surprisingly enough for the detective, the guilty one is not Arquímedes, but the father of Mariano. Mister Jaoquim had a passionate relationship with his son since childhood, he wanted to mold his son as he had always dreamed, and never admitted that Mariano was someone different and a rebel who wanted to run away from Barcelona for ever.

Padre, patrón

1999

The Greek Labyrinth poster
3.8

Two Frenchmen, Bernadette and Lebrum, arrive in Barcelona and hire detective Bardon to find Alekos, the former Greek lover of the woman.

The Greek Labyrinth

1993

Pigmalión poster
NR

Pepe Carvalho receives a call from an ex-lover in distress.

Pigmalión

1986

Cita mortal a l’Up & Down poster
7.0

Carvalho is investigating the murder of a prison officer. The police suspect a young delinquent who had threatened to kill the officer. But Carvalho and Biscuter are on the trail of a friend and ex-cell partner of the defendant called "el Navajas" ("the penknife"). He is a pusher in the discotheque Up & Down. Things get worse when "el Navajas" turns out to be the main suspect of the murder in cold blood of a boy from a good family in the discotheque. Carvalho must find the pusher before the police in order to avoid that his client is sentenced to life imprisonment.

Cita mortal a l’Up & Down

2003

El delantero centro fue asesinado al atardecer poster
7.0

To revive its sagging fortunes, Barcelona FC has bought the services of Jack Mortimer, European Footballer of the Year. No sooner has Mortimer taken possession of his company Porsche than death threats start arriving. Are they a hoax, the work of a loner or are they connected to the awesome real estate speculation that is tearing Barcelona apart? While Catalan pimps and racketeers are being hustled off the streets by crime syndicates from the Middle East, Pepe Carvalho is thinking of retirement, but the need to save the soul of his beloved Barcelona forces him to take on a case that can only end in disaster.

El delantero centro fue asesinado al atardecer

1999

Tal como éramos poster
10.0

Carvalho is hired to investigate the alleged threats to the daughter of the civil governor of Barcelona. Step by step, Carvalho realizes that there is something hidden in core of the mystery that goes back to something that happened in the past and that is related to the governor himself.

Tal como éramos

1999

La soledad del manager poster
8.0

Carvalho is investigating the murder of a man by a prostitute, according to the job the man's wife has given him. But he cannot imagine that the issue goes far beyond and is at a much bigger scale than anyone may think. There is a large multinational behind all the deaths that happen while the investigation is taking place, and economic interests will put Carvalho and his friends in danger.

La soledad del manager

1999

El hermano pequeño poster
8.0

Leo Minués, who used to be a classmate of Carvalho, is found dead the same day he had to testify in a case of corruption and someone asks Carvalho to investigate it. He accepts the case and finds out that Leo was collecting illegal funds for his political party. From that moment, a number of signs appear. This allows Carvalho to discover that Mínguez had made a list of the people involved in the case of corruption. Some videotapes appear, which makes things even more complicated, and Carvalho finds himself walking on shifting land, surrounded by celebrities in the highest spheres. Why did Mínguez die? Who has got the list?

El hermano pequeño

1999

Buscando a Sherezade poster
4.7

Carvalho becomes involved in the search for a missing young dancer, daughter of a famous artist. The search for the dancer's last steps in Barcelona leads him to Italy, where she is supposed to have taken a cruise on the Mediterranean.

Buscando a Sherezade

1999

Young Sierra, peso pluma poster
2.0

Young Serra , after a boxing match dies falling from the roof of his house. The coach of his opponent that night, and old friend of Young, hire the services of Pepe Carvalho to find the mother of the son of Young so it will not be alone .

Young Sierra, peso pluma

1986

La dama inacabada poster
NR

An executive asks Carvalho to obtain photographs of his wife with her lover in order to obtain a divorce. To do so, Carvalho travels to Menorca.

La dama inacabada

1986

Recién casados poster
NR

Pepe Carvalho is hired to guard the gifts at at wedding.

Recién casados

1986

Olímpicament mort poster
NR

A Pepe Carvalho adventure.

Olímpicament mort

1986

Los mares del sur poster
4.3

Long ago, the architect Stuart Pedrell told his family that he was going to the South Seas. However, his daughter Yes has recently received a postcard from her father that comes from a far less exotic place: L'Hospitalet. Carvalho goes to Bellvitge in order to find Yes' father and to discover why he lied to his family. Pedrell never went indeed to the South Seas. He took refuge in Bellvitge where he was murdered.

Los mares del sur

1992

La rose d'Alexandrie poster
7.0

When the corpse of Encarna Abellan appears destroyed on a beach in Barcelona, the detective Pepe Carvalho begins the research and travels to A Coruña. She was married to a wealthy owner belonging to a well-known A Coruña family and had traveled to Barcelona to undergo a fertility treatment, but had previously had relations with Ginés Larios, a merchant navy officer and ex-boyfriend, whom he had left to marry the rich heir The suicide of the latter seems to be the case by closed, however Carvalho decides to try to clarify everything.

La rose d'Alexandrie

2004

Le prix poster
7.0

A Pepe Carvalho story.

Le prix

2004

Les mers du sud poster
7.0

Long ago, the architect Stuart Pedrell told his family that he was going to the South Seas. However, his daughter Yes has recently received a postcard from her father that comes from a far less exotic place: L'Hospitalet. Carvalho goes to Bellvitge in order to find Yes' father and to discover why he lied to his family. Pedrell never went indeed to the South Seas. He took refuge in Bellvitge where he was murdered.

Les mers du sud

2004