Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez (born 25 November 1951 in Cartagena) is a Spanish novelist and journalist. He worked as a war correspondent for RTVE for 21 years (1973–1994). His first novel, El húsar, set in the Napoleonic Wars, was released in 1986. He is well known outside Spain for his "Alatriste" series of novels, which have been translated into multiple languages. Since 2003 he has been a member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Writing Pérez-Reverte's novels are usually centered on one strongly defined character, and his plots move along swiftly, often featuring a narrator who is part of the story but apart from it. Most of his novels take place in Spain or around the Mediterranean. They often draw on numerous references to Spanish history, colonial past, art and culture, ancient treasures and the sea. The novels frequently deal with some of the major issues of modern Spain, such as drug trafficking or the relationship of religion and politics. Often, Pérez-Reverte's novels have two plots running in parallel with little connection between them except for shared characters. For example, in The Club Dumas, the protagonist is searching the world for a lost book and keeps meeting people who parallel figures from Dumas's novels; in The Flanders Panel, a contemporary serial killer is juxtaposed with the mystery of a 500-year-old assassination. In his often polemical newspaper columns and the main characters of his novels, Pérez-Reverte frequently expresses pessimism about human behaviour, shaped by his wartime experiences in such places as El Salvador, Croatia or Bosnia. His views have also been shaped by his research for crime shows. Throughout his career, and especially in its latter half, he has been noted for cultivating his trademark maverick, non-partisan and at times abrasive persona. This has occasionally been a source of conflict with other journalists and writers. He originally refused to have his novels translated from the original Spanish to any language other than French. However, English translations were eventually published for some of his works, and most of his work is also available in Portuguese and Polish. Pérez-Reverte was elected to seat T of the Real Academia Española on 23 January 2003; he took up his seat on 12 June the same year. Themes such as the hero's tiredness, adventure, friendship, the journey as danger, death as the last journey, and culture and memory as the only salvation that allows understanding reality, enduring pain