Racionero, Luis

Luis Racionero i Grau (15 January 1940 – 8 March 2020) was a Spanish essayist. He was born in la Seu d'Urgell, Lleida, and studied engineering and economics at the University of Barcelona and urban studies at the University of California Berkeley. He was director of Spain's national library and of the Spanish College (Colegio de España) in Paris. He worked with newspapers including El País, La Vanguardia and Mundo Deportivo. He wrote both in Catalan and in Spanish. In 1999 he won the Fernando Lara Novel Award for his then-unpublished work La sonrisa de la Gioconda.