Álvaro Pombo García de los Ríos (born June 23, 1939 in Santander) is a Spanish poet, novelist, and activist.

Born in Santander

Santander, Cantabria

The port city of Santander is the capital of the autonomous community and historical region of Cantabria situated on the north coast of Spain. Located east of Gijón and west of Bilbao, the city has a population of 183,446 .-History:...

, Cantabria

Cantabria

Cantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria...

, he studied at the Complutense University of Madrid

Complutense University of Madrid

The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...

 and received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...

, where he lived between 1966 and 1977. His first book of poetry, Protocolos, was published in 1973, and four years later he won the El Bardo prize for his 1977 Variaciones. Returning to Spain that year, he published a collection of short stories, Relatos sobre la falta de sustancia, many of which contained homosexual characters and themes.

In October 2006, Pombo was awarded the Premio Planeta

Premio Planeta

The Premio Planeta de Novela is a Spanish literary prize, awarded since 1952 by the Spanish publisher Grupo Planeta to an original novel written in Spanish . It is one of about 16 literary prizes given by Planeta....

literary prize for his 2006 novel La Fortuna de Matilda Turpin.

Works

• Relatos sobre la falta de sustancia (1977)
• El héroe de las mansardas de Mansard (1983)
• El hijo adoptivo (1986)
• Los delitos insignificantes (1986)
• El parecido (1988)
• El metro de platino iridiado (1990)
• Aparición del eterno femenino contada por S. M. el Rey (1993)
• Telepena de Cecilia Cecilia Villalobo (1995)
• Vida de San Francisco de Asís (1996)
• Donde las mujeres (1996)
• Cuentos reciclados (1997)
• La cuadratura del círculo (1999)
• El cielo raso (2001)
• Una ventana al norte (2004)
• Contra natura (2005)
• La Fortuna de Matilda Turpin (2006)
• La previa muerte del lugarteniente Aloof (2009)

Poetry

• Protocolos (1973)
• Variaciones (1977)
• Hacia una constitución poética del año en curso (1980)
• Protocolos para la rehabilitación del firmamento (1992)
• Protocolos, 1973-2003 (2004)