He was one of the leading figures of post-Civil War Spanish literature, winning numerous literary prizes. Several of his works have been adapted into plays or have been turned into films, winning awards at the Cannes Film Festival among others. He has been ranked with Heinrich Böll and Graham Greene as one of the most prominent Catholic writers of the second half of the twentieth century. He was deeply affected by the death of his wife in 1974. In 1998 he was diagnosed with colon cancer, from which he never fully recovered. He died in 2010.