Luis Racionero

Luis Racionero i Grau (January 15, 1940 – March 8, 2020) was a Spanish essayist. He studied engineering and economics at the University of Barcelona and urban studies at the University of California Berkeley. 
He was director of Spain's national library and of the Spanish College ("Colegio de España") in Paris. He worked with newspapers including "El País", "La Vanguardia" and Mundo Deportivo. He wrote both in Catalan and in Spanish.
In 1999 he won the Fernando Lara Novel Award for his then-unpublished work "La sonrisa de la Gioconda".