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Miguel Mihura

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Miguel Mihura
Born
Miguel Mihura Santos

(1905-07-21)21 July 1905
Madrid, Spain
Died27 October 1977(1977-10-27) (aged 72)
Madrid, Spain

Miguel Mihura Santos (21 July 1905, in Madrid – 27 October 1977) was a Spanish playwright. He is best known for his comedy Tres sombreros de copa (1952), a work of absurd humor that predates similar works by Beckett or Ionesco and that broke with many of the previous conventions of Spanish comic theatre. He was also active as a comics artist.[1]

Biography

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Miguel Mihura was born in Madrid in 1905. His father was an actor and theatrical producer. When he was in his twenties, he wrote his best-known comedy, Tres sombreros de copa, but its humour was not appreciated by the conservative pre-war Spanish society. Tres sombreros de copa was not staged until 1952, achieving a great success. In the 1920s he was a contributor of the satirical magazine Gutiérrez.[2]

During the civil war he edited a satirical magazine entitled La Ametralladora which was produced by the nationalists.[3] In 1941 he founded another satirical magazine, La Codorniz, which he owned and edited until 1944.[4] He also contributed various magazines, including Mundo Hispánico[5] and Vértice.[6] In the latter he worked as the artistic director from 1939.[6]

Mihura also wrote several screenplays in Spanish films during the second world war . Most of them were cut by the censors and some do not exist. One of his greatest contributions was in Welcome Mr. Marshall! (1953), directed by Luis García Berlanga.

His brother was the film director Jerónimo Mihura.

Selected filmography

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References

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  1. ^ "Miguel Mihura".
  2. ^ Rhiannon McGlade (2016). Catalan Cartoons: A Cultural and Political History. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. pp. 81, 115. ISBN 978-1-78316-805-7.
  3. ^ Stuart Green (2010). "Humour and national identity in Spain: the failed Americanisation of Spanish comedy (1939–1945)". Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies. 16 (2–3): 137. doi:10.1080/14701847.2010.533429. S2CID 162341373.
  4. ^ "Intelligent humor under Franco". El País. Madrid. 2 December 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
  5. ^ "Proyectos en torno a la revista "Mundo Hispánico" (1948-1977)" (in Spanish). AECID. 7 April 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  6. ^ a b Ignacio Jose Huerta Bravo (2021). Fascism, Populism and Common Sense in Spain: La Gaceta Literaria, La Conquista del Estado, F.E. y Vertice (1927-1939) (PhD thesis) (in Spanish). University of Michigan. pp. 179–180. doi:10.7302/1426.
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