CASTILLO, MICHEL DEL

born Aug. 2, 1933, Madrid in full Michel-xavier Janicot Del Castillo Spanish-born novelist writing in French, who became famous at 24 for a short novel, Tanguy (1957; A Child of Our Time, 1958). Though written as fiction, it is the actual story of his experiences as a political refugee and a prisoner in concentration camps; and, like The Diary of Anne Frank, it has the poignancy of a child's witness to cruel historical events. Del Castillo fled Spain for France as a boy in 1939 with the exodus of refugees at the end of the Civil War. Shortly after, with his mother, who was a political radical, he was sent to Nazi concentration camps. Tanguy and Le Colleur d'affiches (1958; The Disinherited, 1959) deal with these two traumatic experiences. They show the disarray of a young mind prematurely falling prey to political skepticism and religious doubt, without losing faith in mankind. They reflect his anguish at social injustice and his need for solace in brotherhood. Deeply attached to Spain, he returned to its strife-torn soil in La Guitare (1957; The Guitar, 1959) and in Le Mange espagnol (1960; Through the Hoop, 1962), a colourful but heavy-handed satire of religion. Later works include Les Louves de l'Escurial (1964; The She-Wolves of the Escorial), Gerardo Lan (1967; The Seminarian, 1969), Le Silence des pierres (1975; The Silence of Stones), Le Sortilege espagnol (1977; Spanish Sorcery), Les Cyprs meurent en Italie (1979; The Cypresses Die in Italy), La Nuit de dcret (1981; The Night of the Decree), and Une Femme en soi (1991; A Woman Herself). Briefly an actor, he played the role of a Spanish Loyalist in the film taken from Sartre's short story Le Mur (1939; The Wall).