Jorge Guillén was born in Valladolid. His life paralleled that of his friend Pedro Salinas, whom he succeeded as a Spanish teaching assistant at the Collège de Sorbonne in the University of Paris from 1917 to 1923. He was also a professor at the University of Murcia from 1925 to 1929, the University of Oxford from 1929 to 1931, and the University of Seville from 1932 to 1938. Exiled, he was forced to establish himself in the United States to continue his postsecondary teaching. He was a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College from 1941 to 1967. He retired to Italy, where he married for the second time. He later moved to the city of Málaga. In 1977, he was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes for Spanish-language writers. He died in Málaga in 1984, age 91.