Biography
Jorge Semprún (also credited as Jorge Semprún Maura) was a Spanish writer and screenwriter who lived primarily in France and wrote mainly in French. Born in Madrid in 1923, he was a survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp and worked clandestinely in Spain for the Communist Party of Spain until his expulsion from the party in 1964. He later served as Spain's Minister of Culture from 1988 to 1991.
Semprún wrote screenplays for several notable films, including The War Is Over (1966) directed by Alain Resnais, Z (1969) and The Confession (1970) directed by Costa-Gavras, Stavisky... (1974) and Special Section (1975). He received Academy Award nominations for his work on The War Is Over and Z. In 1996 he became the first non-French member of the Académie Goncourt, and he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1997.
