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Here you will find information tailored for newspaper needs, with a biography, pictures and links for information on literary style and influences of the author.

The information contained in this release are free of all rights (copyright) and is provided solely for publication in the media, for promotion of activities related to the author or for personal use.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Venezuela, the second son of a couple of Spanish emigrants, Grian returned with his family to Spain in 1964, when he was 7 years old. The author would live in Valencia the rest of his childhood and adolescence, devoted to their studies, the sport of rugby (Les Abelles Rugby Club) and music, fully immersed in the Counterculture of the 60 and 70. His rebellious nature was channeled mainly through music, facing the Franco dictatorship through the lyrics of the songs from two pop-rock bands which stood out in Valencia in those years: Humo and Cuixa , with which he would record two LPs when democracy arrived to Spain.

After finishing his studies in Psychology, in September 1980, after the death of his father, he would move to an inland city of Valencia, Requena, where he would establish a private consult as a psychotherapist, being oriented in their first professional steps by Dr. Vicente Pelechano and Dr. Ismael Quintanilla. It would be there, in the mountains of Requena, where he would begin an inner search that has so deeply marked his writing and his activities, and where during six years he led and presented a radio program in an independent radio station, Radio Requena FM, from where he carried out intensive awareness-raising campaigns for peace and the environment.

During those years, he would ease their youthful nostalgia for music involving through his participation as a singer and actor in a semi-professional musical company, the Avalon Troupe, with such outstanding productions as Jesus Christ Superstar, where he played the role of Jesus, or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

He also would work in the amazing world of the elite sport as a coach of the rally driver Luis Climent, achieving with him the Spanish Rally Championship 1996 and the World Championship of Private Teams (FIA Cup) 1999, accompanying him later in the offical Skoda Rally Team during the World Championship 2000.

In 1996, Grian published his first book, The Gardener, which, without any media support, would become an international bestseller, being translated to English (HarperCollins), Chinese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Thai and Catalan, and reaching the 25 editions in Spanish (3 of them in Mexico). Later Grian wrote Beyond the rainbow (1998), The Rose of Peace (2003, foreword by Dr. Federico Mayor Zaragoza and Associate Book in the Forum of Cultures Barcelona 2004), and Mahabbat (2005), among others.

The success of his books would lead him to spread his ideas and his vision of a new humanity in hundreds of lectures, conferences and workshops in Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, United States and United Kingdom, and to carry out new creative projects, such as a series of book-discs on mystics of all cultures with the renowned medievalist musician Eduardo Paniagua.

In 2004, and seeing the new violence escalation in the Middle East with the Iraq War, Grian would move to Cordoba to start a NGO, the Avalon Project - Initiative for a Culture of Peace , for which he would have the personal support of Dr. Federico Mayor Zaragoza, General Manager of UNESCO from 1987 to 1999.

Grian is a lover of Native American traditions for fifteen years ago and is currently deepening the Lakota Sioux culture through an Oglala ceremonial leader, Ed McGaa - Eagle Man, direct receiver of the teachings of Frank Fools Crow and Bill Eagle Feather.

Grian is living currently in Requena, Spain, with his partner, Marta. They have launched a new educational project to builders of a better world: Midnight Sun - Creating a new world. Grian has a daughter, Diana (b. 1984), and a son, Govinda (born 1980).

"The truth is that all man is like the dancing lights and fiery shadows in a dark room of the house. The flames raise him to the clouds of his divine condition, at the same time that they create frightening shapeless shadows on the walls of the room. It is the double nature that we all take part in; the two masks that we all use in the theatre of life." 

Grian, in The Gardener

LITERARY STYLE AND INFLUENCES

From Wikipedia in Spanish > click here

Grian has worked in his books both fiction (inspirational books) as essay, his work being deeply inspired by nature, abounding in natural settings and landscapes, including characters from the very nature (such as Wind, Eagle or Oak, in his book Beyond the Rainbow) . His themes speak of a  simple and straightforward spirituality ,  away from dogmatic straitjackets and unreasonable attitudes to, from here, set out his views about a new world and a new humanity.

His prose, visual and descriptive, but not devoid of beauty and rhythm (to the point of becoming sometimes poetic prose), has the peculiarity of immersing the reader in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility that makes even easier to understand the life and soul proposals he offers through the pages of his books.

Dr. Federico Mayor Zaragoza has said about Grian: "Grian, like Gibran Khalil Gibran, like Tagore and, in some respects, like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince, like some stories of Gabriela Mistral... unveils the infinite, the enormity of each human being, unique, unrepeatable, creative...”

But perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Grian style is his ability in the use of analogy for teaching purposes, as it has been highlighted by the author, editor and former Minister of the Government of Spain, Manuel Pimentel.

In general, Grian books are easy to read, despite the depth of his message, to the point that books like The Gardener has become part of the curricula of secondary education in some schools in Spain. Perhaps one exception to this simplicity is his book Mahabbat , his most elaborated work, not only for its extensive documentation, because it is a work of historical fiction located in the Umayyad Cordoba in the tenth century, but also because its well made literary style and perhaps because its content is too deep.

Grian influences are mostly of a spiritual nature, a fact that largely determines his literary and creative work. These influences can be basically found in mystic authors and spiritual teachers from different traditions and cultures, as the Sufis Rumi and Ibn Arabi, the Christian Tony de Mello and the Hindu Jiddu Krishnamurti; although there are also influences of psychologists and thinkers such as Carl Gustav Jung, Ken Wilber, Albert Ellis, Henry Corbin or Karlfried Graf Durkheim, who, despite their obvious theoretical differences, find in Grian a meeting point from their different layers of understanding. With them, Grian manages to combine explanations without actually mixing the essential theoretical assumptions. In his later books there is also a strong influence of the natural philosophy of the Native American tradition.

In his inspirational books, Grian literary influences are found in the works of authors like Gibran Khalil Gibran or Antoine de Saint Exupery (including Rabindranath Tagore in his small inroads in the poetic prose) and in the writings of Tony de Mello or traditional works of Sufism, in terms of resources used in his short stories (including the use of irony, satire and double meaning), but the contents of Grian tend to social issues and visions of a better world and a higher humanity.

His social thought is largely mediated by the Counterculture of the 60 and 70, which Grian claims to have lived with intensity, and by his brief experience (but also intense) in the Findhorn Community (Scotland), as well as by various social approaches, among which Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence and William Ury approaches on the Third Side in the treatment of conflicts stand out.

PRESS CLIPPINGS (in Spanish)

RADIO KLARA - In the cold night air, with Paco Sanchez (May 25th, 2011)

MANUGUERRERO.ES - Culture, journalism and democracy (Apr. 27th, 2011)  > clique aquí

LA VANGUARDIA - La Contra, Ima Sanchís (Mar. 29th 2005) > click here

ABC - Cordoba Edition. Luís Miranda (Dec. 13th 2005) > click here

MIAMI HERALD - El Nuevo Herald, Elena Iglesias (Jun. 30th 2000) > click here

EL IDEAL de Granada, Tatiana Rodríguez (Nov. 10th 2004) > click here

DIARIO DE SEVILLA, Manuel Conradi (Nov. 23th 2006) > click here

AÑO CERO (Jan. 4th 2005) > click here

GRANADA HOY, Actual Hoy, Esther Falcón (Jan. 2006) > click here

PHOTOS

Click on the image that interests you and there will be open a new window with the photo. The photos are displayed in chronological order from 1996, when Grian published The Gardener (first two photos), and between 2003 and 2009 (the rest).

Photos by Julián Ortega, Javier Poveda, Nandy Jareño, Elena Pérez, Ana Pérez and Marta Ventura.