Manuel Vázquez Montalbán is a prolific writer who has cultivated diverse genres: essay, novel, poetry, short story, and drama. He is mostly known as a novelist, particularly as the creator of a series of detective novels with Pepe Carvalho as the protagonist. The Carvalho books have reached high sales numbers, and some of them have been adapted for cinema and television. His other novels have also been well received. His novel Autobiografía del general Franco, published in 1992, was on the best-seller lists for many months. The success of his narrative has been proven by many literary awards: the Planeta Prize, 1979; the French International Detective Literature Prize, 1981; the German Critics' Bunche Prize, 1988; the City of Barcelona Prize, 1989; the Italian Recalmare Prize, 1989; the Spanish National Literature Prize, 1991; and the Italian Raymond Chandler Prize, 1992. On the other hand, his constant work as an active journalist...