Santiago Alba Rico

Writer and essayist

A graduate in Philosophy (UCM), Alba Rico was scriptwriter for the legendary television programme ‘La bola de cristal’ and has had some twenty books on politics, philosophy and literature published, as well as three children’s stories and a play.  His works include the essays ‘Las reglas del caos’ (nominated for the Anagrama Award 1995), ‘La ciudad intangible’ (2000), ‘El islam jacobino’ (2001), ‘Vendrá la realidad y nos encontrará dormidos’ (2006), ‘Leer con niños’ (2015), ‘Capitalismo y nihilismo’ (2007), ‘El naufragio del hombre’ (2009), ‘Noticias’ (2010) and ‘Penúltimos días’ (Los libros de la catarata, 2016).  Since 1988 he has had a close relationship with the Arab world, having translated into Spanish the Egyptian poet Naguib Surur and the Iraqi novelist Mohammed Jydair.  For many years he has given lessons in Literature at the Cervantes Institute.  His latest books are ‘Ser o no ser (un cuerpo)’ (Seix Barral, 2017), ‘Todo el pasado por delante’ (Los libros de la catarata, 2017) and ‘Nadie está seguro con un libro en las manos’ (Catarata, 2018).  Alba Rico works with media outlets such as Público, Cuarto Poder, CTXT and Atlántica XXII.