José Manuel Caballero

José Manuel Caballero Bonald (born November 11, 1926) is a Spanish novelist, lecturer and poet.

He was born in calle Caballeros, Jerez, Spain. His father was Plácido Caballero, a Cuban whose mother was of European descent and whose father was from Cantabria. His mother was Julia Bonald, a descendant of Viscount Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald, a traditional French philosopher who settled in Andalucia in the middle of the 19th century.

Between 1936 and 1943 he studied at the Marianistas de Jerez School. During the Spanish Civil War, he spent some time in the Sierra de Cádiz and in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. He read the first books that were to influence him: Jack London, Emilio Salgari, Robert Louis Stevenson, and José de Espronceda.

Between 1944 and 1948 he undertook nautical studies in Cádiz, and he wrote his first poems. He made friends with members of the Cádiz magazine Platero, namely Fernando Quiñones, Pilar Paz Pasamar, Felipe Sordo Lamadrid, Serafín Pro Hesles, Julio Mariscal, José Luis Tejada, Francisco Pleguezuelo and Pedro Ardoy.

Caballero spent his military service in the Milicia Naval Universitaria and spent two summers sailing in the waters of the Canary Islands, Morocco and Galicia. His military career was curtailed when he contracted a lung illness and travelled to Jerez to recuperate.

Between 1949 and 1952 he studied philosophy and literature in Seville.

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