In Understanding Camilo Jose Cela, Lucile C. Charlebois examines the 1989 Nobel laureate's ten most important novels. She shows that in addition to being unequivocally Spanish in their concerns, characters and imagery the novels speak to the larger world with their compendium of insights into the most basic human needs, desires and fears. Drawing upon Cela's childhood, participation in the Spanish Civil War and life in Spain during and after Franco's dictatorship, Charlebois shows that in spite of the repression that beset his homeland during so much of his career, Cela successfully developed his penchant for technical experimentation and creative renewal. In addition to identifying his favoured stylistic devices and thematic concerns, she provides close readings of the novelist's textured discourses, which bristle with fragmentation and ambiguity, hilarity and profanity, iconoclasm and alienation.