The author

Natalio Grueso has held positions of responsibility at several internationally prominent institutions. He has been director of the Teatro Español and director of Performing Arts for the city of Madrid.

He was responsible for the European Union's interregional cooperation programmes with the former Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. During those years he coordinated several dozen projects in Eastern European countries. He later worked as a consultant for international organisations (Eurostat, the UN…), was co-founder of the international consultancy firm DEX, which now has a successful track record of more than twenty-five years, and creator of the internationally acclaimed Centro Niemeyer. He also worked for King Felipe VI of Spain as director of international relations at the Fundación Príncipe de Asturias, before going on to head the performing arts of the city of Madrid and the Teatro Español.

With his first novel, La soledad, he achieved international success with critics and readers alike. He is also the author of Woody Allen, el último genio, an authorised biography based on numerous conversations with the Manhattan master; of the novels La suerte de los dados, La república de los ladrones and ¿Qué fue de Macarena Albanta?; of the essays Héroes, visionarios y malditos and Carlos Saura, en busca de la luz, and of the Arno saga, made up of La doma del elefante, Pide rienda el corazón and Los perros suicidas. He also has a remarkable body of work as a playwright. He has produced more than 30 plays and written a dozen works staged in the leading theatres of Spain and Latin America.

Translated into more than a dozen languages, in 2022 he received the International Latino Book Award in Los Angeles for the best Spanish-language novel published in the United States, for Arno. La doma del elefante.