Jorge Semprún Maura was a Spanish writer, essayist, screenwriter and politician. He was born on 10.12.1923 in Madrid and died on 01.06.2011 in Paris.
During the Spanish Civil War, his family went into exile in France in 1937. In Paris, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. In 1941, he joined the communist resistance organization Francs-tireurs et partisans and in 1942 the Spanish Communist Party. In 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. He returned to Paris in 1945 and worked as a translator for Unesco until 1952. From 1953, he coordinated the secret resistance activities against the Franco regime on behalf of the Central Committee of the Spanish Communist Party in exile and then became a member of the Central Committee and the Politburo. From 1957 to 1962, he led the underground work of the Communist Party in Franco's Spain under the pseudonym Federico Sanchez. From 1988 to 1991, he was Minister of Culture in the Spanish government.
He has received many prizes for his works, including the Premio Formentor in 1963 for The Long Voyage and the Prix Fémina in 1969 for The Second Death of Ramón Mercader. In 1994 he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and for Literature or Life he received the Prix Femina Vacaresco in 1994 and the Prix Littéraire des Droits de l'Homme in 1995. Jorge Semprún's novels revolve around themes and events that have shaped his life. Many of his strongly autobiographical works are testimonies to and reflections on the terrible experiences he had in the Gestapo rooms in Auxerre and later in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
