The César Manrique Foundation (FCM) presents next Thursday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m., the latest book by journalist and writer Juan Cruz Ruiz entitled Secreto y pasión de la literatura. Los escritores en primera persona, de Borges a Almudena Grandes, published by Tusquets. The event, which will take place in the José Saramago room (La Plazuela, Arrecife), will also feature journalist Eva Cruz to discuss the work with the author. In addition, it will be broadcast live through the FCM website and YouTube channel.
Secreto y pasión de la literatura is a portrait of a long series of essential authors in Hispanic-American narrative of the last decades. Over the years, Juan Cruz was able to meet them, treat them and interview them repeatedly, which has allowed him to trace this splendid atlas of literary life and the publishing world in Spanish.
The pages of the book contain anecdotes, stories, statements, in-depth interviews and portraits of writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Almudena Grandes, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, Fernando Aramburu, Antonio Orejudo, Rafael Reig, Juan Carlos Onetti, Leonardo Padura, Jorge Semprún or Cristina Fernández Cubas, to which are also added profiles of writers such as Susan Sontag or Günter Grass.
Juan Cruz Ruiz (Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, 1948) is journalist, editor and writer. In the newspaper El País, where he worked since its foundation in 1976, he directed the Opinion section, was editor-in-chief of Culture, and finally assistant to the Directorate. Between 1992 and 1998 he was director of the Alfaguara publishing house.
He published his first book, Crónica de la nada hecha pedazos, in 1972. Since then, and until now, he has published more than forty books, including titles such as La foto de los suecos (1998), Retrato de un hombre desnudo (2005), Ojalá octubre (2007), Egos revueltos (2009), Especies en extinción (2013), Por el gusto de leer (2014) or, recently, Érase una vez Alfaguara (2024).
He has obtained the Canary Islands Literature, Benito Pérez Armas, Azorín de Novela and the National Cultural Journalism awards, and in 2009 he won the Comillas Prize for Egos revueltos.
Eva Cruz (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1973) has a master's degree in Renaissance studies from the University of London (Queen Mary) and a doctorate in English Philology from the University of Alcalá. She has translated about twenty books, taught English and literature and collaborated in various radio and television programs. She currently works as a screenwriter in the magazine de Hoy por Hoy, with Àngels Barceló, on Cadena Ser. In 2022 she published Veinte años de Sol (ADN), her first novel.
