where he honed his artistic skills. In 1941 he secured a job as a cartoonist with the leading newspaper of Valladolid, El Norte de Castilla. On April 23, 1946, he married Ángeles de Castro, who later became one of his greatest literary inspirations. They spent their honeymoon in Molledo, Cantabria. Early literary career After his marriage, Delibes' literary career really started to take off, beginning a three-year period that defined his career. In 1947 he began writing his first novel, La sombra del ciprés es alargada (The cypress casts a long shadow), which won the Premio Nadal the following year, marking his emergence on the Spanish literary scene. His novel Aún es de día (It is still daytime) was published, heavily censored, in 1948. His family grew during this same period. His son Miguel, who would later become a famous biologist, was born in 1947. His daughter Ángeles, who would also become a renowned biologist and researcher, was born the following year, and in 1949 his third child, Germán, was born. In 1950, a new stage in the writer's literary career commenced. After suffering a bout of tuberculosis, he published El camino (The road), his third novel. The novel tells the discovery of life and the experiences of a boy who moves from the countryside to the city. The work constituted his final consecration in the Spanish post-war narrative. That year saw the birth of his daughter Elisa, who later became a graduate of Hispanic and French Studies. In 1952, he was appointed deputy director of the newspaper El Norte de Castilla, and his battles with censorship became increasingly direct and frequent. The writer entered a new phase in his life in which he would publish a new work virtually every year, namely: Mi idolatrado hijo Sisí (My adored son Sissi) 1953, La partida (The departure) 1954, Diario de un cazador (Diary of a hunter) 1955, Premio Nacional de Narrativa (National Prize for Fiction), Un novelista descubre América (A novelist discovers America) 1956, Siestas con viento sur (Siestas with southern wind) 1957, Fastenrath Award, Diario de un emigrante (Diary of an emigrant) 1958, and La hoja roja (The red leaf), 1959. This last novel was existentialist in content and deals with a photographer who recalls his life on the brink of his retirement. In 1956, his son Juan Delibes was born. He would become a biologist like his siblings and