"Hundreds of people lined up to get the author's signature, who has sold 32 million books"
Despite being 88 years old, or perhaps because of it, Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1936) continues to draw a large number of loyal readers to the presentation of any of his novels. This was the case with “La Gran Sequía” (June, 2024), the latest book written by the Tenerife native who resides in Madrid. His book signing at the stand of his publisher, Edhasa, attracted hundreds of readers who formed an endless queue, one of the longest at the fair, within the framework of Madrid's Parque del Retiro.
With more than a hundred works published, many of his novels have been adapted into films or television shows. This is the reason why, since his first publishing successes, Alberto has had a legion of readers who remain faithful to his adventure stories, in which, besides being entertained, readers learn about geography, culture, and history through the adventures of his fascinating characters.
Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa was born on October 11, 1936, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The grandson of a lighthouse keeper, his mother was born on the remote island of Lobos, near the island of Fuerteventura. For political reasons, he went to live with his uncle in Spanish Africa in the Western Sahara, where he spent the first sixteen years of his life in the desert.
His education, amidst sand slates, desks under the shade of palm trees, and an infernal and merciless sun, depended solely on the books his uncle kept in a modest library: Stevenson, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville—writers who told stories of exotic places, of lives like that of young Alberto.
He still keeps his old cameras, which recorded the horror and senselessness of wars and political revolutions that he reported to the world through La Vanguardia and RTVE. He shunned the carpets and chairs of newspaper offices.
Two months after graduating from the Official School of Journalism in Madrid in 1959, he bought a sailboat with a couple of friends to sail the turquoise and unusual waters of Polynesia.
Today, more than sixty years later, he continues with his daily writing routine, an activity to which he dedicates his entire day at his residence in Madrid.
Translated into Chinese, Bulgarian, Russian, and Arabic, he has sold 32 million books worldwide, making him one of the most widely read Spanish-speaking writers in recent decades, and undoubtedly the best-selling living Spanish writer.
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