Darío Villanueva

Darío Villanueva
Villanueva in a round table discussion at the 2011 Valladolid International Film Festival
Born	(1950-06-05) 5 June 1950 (age 66) Vilalba, Lugo, Spain
Occupation	Literary critic literary theorist author professor director of the RAE
Language	Spanish Galician English
Education	University of Santiago de Compostela (Lic.) Autonomous University of Madrid (PhD)
Years active	1973–present
Spouse	María Ermitas Penas Varela
Children	2
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Francisco Darío Villanueva Prieto (born 5 June 1950) is a Spanish literary theorist and critic, and is the director of the Real Academia Española as of 11 December 2014. He has been a member of the Academia since 2007, and he occupies the chair corresponding to the letter D.

Villanueva is also a professor of philology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where he specializes in literary theory and comparative literature.

The son of an Asturian father and a Galician mother, Darío Villanueva grew up in Luarca, Asturias, where his father served as a judge. He later moved to Lugo, Galicia, where he completed his secondary schooling. In 1970, he relocated to A Coruña.

In 1972, he obtained a degree in Romance philology from the University of Santiago de Compostela with high honours, and in 1976, he received his doctorate cum laude in Hispanic philology from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Villanueva was the secretary and later the dean of the Faculty of Philology at the University of Santiago de Compostela from 1978 to 1990. In June 1994, he became rector and in May 1998 he was re-elected for another four-year term.

Villanueva was also a visiting professor at Middlebury College in 1987, the University of Colorado in 1988 and 1993, and the University of Burgundy from 1989 to 1991.