José Maria Sanchez-Silva y Garcia-Morales (1911 - 2002)
was a Spanish writer. He received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal
in 1968 for his contribution to children's literature.
Sanchez-Silva was born in Madrid. His father, José
María Sánchez Silva, was a journalist close to
anarchism, writing in the journal Earth, who went into exile in
1939. But many years before the family had been unstructured and
son (Sánchez-Silva) just lived with his father at times was
practically a vagrant child. He joined in institutions for orphans
and children at risk as the Brown School of Madrid (Madrid City
Hall dependent). In these institutions for children learned typing
and shorthand, which got a stenographer's office in the city of
Madrid. In 1934, he published his first book The Man in the
scarf.
During the Spanish Civil War, he remained in the Republican zone
in Madrid, working with the clandestine activities of the Falange
up to the time of Franco's troops entered the city. In 1939, he
began working as a journalist in the newspaper Arriba, where he
became assistant principal, and also collaborated with the
newspaper El Pueblo. Jose Maria Sanchez Silva won his fame as a
result of the story Marcelino bread and wine, which was made into a
film by Ladislao Vajda, and became one of the great successes of
Spanish cinema worldwide. In addition to the aforementioned
Andersen Award he received in 1968, won the national prize for
literature in 1957. After the success of the story of Marcelino, he
returned to resume the character in stories under Marcelino Pan y
Vino and Adventures in the sky Marcelino Pan y Vino. Together with
José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, was the author of the
screenplay of the movie Franco, ese hombre, a biography in the
dictator.