Eduardo Mendoza: right time, right place

"His books stand out for their sense of humor and their casual, humanistic view of existence," reads the minutes of the award presented yesterday. Eduardo Mendoza is, indeed, a good-humored author whose work doesn't shy away from the tragedies of existence, but manages to balance them with a healthy dose of casualness. A literary success story, he remains modest and practices British self-deprecation . He's not just a great novelist: he's a well-liked author.

There are literary figures who are sympathetic—to their readers, booksellers, librarians, the press, the so-called book ecosystem—and others from whom it's intuited it's better to keep a certain distance. From the beginning, Mendoza has belonged to the first group. In a profession rife with bitterness, it's almost impossible to find someone who speaks ill of him. Not even his success arouses envy: everyone assumes he deserves it; and even the most elitist and tough-minded critics are willing to celebrate his best-selling works, a circumstance that would work against many colleagues.

There is another element worth highlighting. Mendoza has been, several times, without being able to foresee it, at the right time and place on the cultural map to capture and embody the mood of the era. His novel The Truth About the Savolta Case appeared on April 23, 1975: World Book Day of the year Franco died. No date could be more symbolic for the title that would be identified, due to its innovative nature and dynamism, as the starting shot of the new Spanish narrative of democracy.

His great Barcelona novel , The City of Marvels, was published in 1986, five months before Samaranch proclaimed Barcelona the 1992 Olympic host in Lausanne. Nor can one imagine a work more representative of the civic uprising that was about to be unleashed.

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We find in Mendoza an original and free writing. And isn't the awarding of the Princess of Asturias Award this year, the fiftieth anniversary of a date that paved the way for freedom, also tremendously symbolic?