Authors Daniel Vázquez Sallés

Writer and journalist specialized in gastronomy and cinema.  An Information Sciences graduate from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, he combined his degree coursework with cinema studies at New York University.  After finishing his degree, he entered the world of cinema as assistant director and producer until starting his own production company, Cuarteto, with which he made three short films.  He left filmmaking after these successes and for the last few years has dedicated himself completely to writing novels and collaborating as a freelance journalist with the El Mundo, La Vanguardia Cultura/s, and El Periódico newspapers, combining this work with publishing articles and reports in magazines such as Fotogramas, Clío, Qué leer and Descobrir Cuina.  He received the Juan Mari Arzak Prize in 2004 for an extensive report on the El Bulli restaurant.

His first novel was Flores negras para Michael Roddick [Black flowers for Michael Roddick] (Plaza & Janés, 2003), a spy thriller also published in Catalan, German, Italian and Portuguese which has recently been adapted to cinema by the production company Ovideo.  Subsequently he published an essay titled Comer con los ojos [Eat with the eyes] (RBA, 2006), a subjective reflection on «cinema, cooking and the memory», which was a midway point before publishing his last novel, La fiesta ha terminado [The party's over] (RBA, 2009).  With this book he sought to distance himself from his previous work and he has received positive critiques by the specialized press for his efforts. An extremely reserved man, the only thing known about his private life is that he met Céline Rodríguez in 2003, married her in 2008, and that he has a son who currently leans more towards the sciences than the arts.  He lives between Barcelona and Madrid which has made him an expert on airline delays and other calamities.    

Critics have said:  

"La fiesta ha terminado draws the reader in from the exciting first pages until the disquieting end, both due to its fluent narrative and its sharp and biting dialogues, in which the interlocutors avenge their malaise in the skin of others with words as poisoned as they are well-aimed."       Ada Cruz. Culturas Supplement. La Vanguardia.  

"In the end, without reaching the violence of Chéjov or attaining the existential coldness of Moravia, the disillusionment in this steeled and realistic novel will remain steadfast in the best tradition of our literature".            
Fernando Castanedo. Babelia. El País  

"Flores negras by Roddick reclaims the spirit of the more classical "pulp" spy novel, full of intrigue, but dresses it with a Mediterranean touch"
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