born in santander, cantabria, he studied at the complutense university of madrid and received a bachelor of arts in philosophy at birkbeck, university of london, where he lived between 1966 and 1977. his first book of poetry, "protocolos", was published in 1973, and four years later he won the "el bardo" prize for his 1977 "variaciones". returning to spain that year, he published a collection of short stories, "relatos sobre la falta de sustancia", many of which contained homosexual characters and themes.