José María Merino (La Coruña, 1941) has won many prizes: the Novels and Stories for Novel of Andrés Choz (1976), the Critics for The Dark Shore (1985), National Young People's Literature for The Summer Trains, the Miguel Delibes Fiction for Lucrecia's visions (1996), the NH Stories for Imaginary Days (2002), the Ramón Gómez de la Serna Fiction for The Heir (2003), the Gonzalo Torrente Ballester Fiction for The Guiltless Place (2007) and the Salambó for the microstories of The Fugitives' Roundabout (2007). His works have been translated to various languages, and his stories, many of which are collected in Fifty Stories and a Fable (1997) are included in all the important Spanish anthologies of recent years. Winner of the Castilla y León Literature Prize 2009, he is a member of the Real Academia Española.