Vicente Aleixandre was born in Sevilla (Spain) on April 26, 1898. He spent his childhood in Malaga and he has lived in Madrid since 1909. Studied law at the University of Madrid and at the Madrid School of Economics. Beginning in 1925 he has completely devoted himself to literature. His first book of poems, Ambit, appeared in 1928. Since that date he has written and published a score of books. In 1933, he received the National Literary Prize for his work Destruction or Love. He spent the Civil War in the Republican zone. He fell ill and remained in Madrid at the end of the conflict, silenced by the new authorities for four years. In 1944, he published The Shadow of Paradise, still maintaining his independence of the established political situation. In 1950, he became a member of the Spanish Academy. His books and anthologies have been published up to the present day. The Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature for the totality of his work in 1977.

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Vicente Aleixandre died on December 14, 1984.