The director of EL PAÍS, Pepa Bueno, has appointed Jordi Gracia deputy director of Opinion.
Gracia (Barcelona, 1965) is a professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Barcelona and a regular contributor to EL PAÍS.
He has been publishing in the Opinion section for more than 15 years and regularly practicing literary criticism in the pages of Babelia, the newspaper's cultural supplement.
Author of a score of essays, anthologies and studies, his specialty has been biographical studies, postwar Spanish cultural and political history and democracy, the relationship with Latin America and progressive thought. As a biographer, he has written reference works dedicated to José Ortega y Gasset, Miguel de Cervantes and Dionisio Ridruejo. His latest work is
Javier Pradera or the power of the left.
Half a century of democratic culture
, consecrated to one of the great figures of EL PAÍS since its foundation.
A contributor to various media, Gracia was especially linked to this newspaper in 2004, months before winning the Anagram of essay with
Silent Resistance. Fascism and culture in Spain
, also awarded the following year the Caballero Bonald prize for the best essay book. This work is the nucleus of a line of research and analysis on the survival and rebirth of culture after the Civil War, of which the
State and culture
are also part
. The awakening of a critical conscience under Franco (1940-1962)
,
Imperfect Bourgeois. Heterodoxy and literary dissidence in Catalonia
- originally written in Catalan - or
Out in the open. Exile and culture in Spain
. Too
The Herralde papers. A history of Anagrama (1968-2000)
, constructed from the Catalan publisher's letters to the authors of his label.
His more specific dedication to literature has been reflected in his participation in two of the general histories of the most prestigious Spanish letters of the last decades: those directed for the Crítica publishing house by Francisco Rico in 2000 and by José Carlos Mainer in 2011. In the first of them dealt with the volume
The New Names (1975-2000)
; in the second, together with his colleague from the Pompeu Fabra University Domingo Ródenas, he signed the volume
Defeat and restitution of modernity (1939-2010)
. In addition, he has prepared critical editions and anthologies of authors such as Pere Gimferrer, Benjamín Jarnés, José Ferrater Mora and the Mexican Alfonso Reyes. The main reflection of his studies on Latin America is the book he wrote with Joaquín Marco
The arrival of the barbarians.
Hispano-American narrative in Spain.
In addition to being a student of modern Spanish thought and an essayist, Gracia is the author of two pamphlets: a critique of cultural catastrophism -
The melancholic intellectual
- and an analysis of the present and future of social democracy:
Against the Left.
To remain on the left in the 21st century
.
The former deputy director of the section, Andrea Rizzi, linked to the newspaper since 2004, will assume new functions within the Editorial Office.