Personal information

Surname: Salom Vidal
First name: Jaime
Born: 25 December 1925, Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Jaime Salom is one of the most successful Spanish playwrights of the latter half of the twentieth century. Born in Barcelona, Salom studied medicine, eventually specialising as an ophthalmologist, a profession which he continued to practise until his retirement in 1990. His career as a playwright began in the 1940s, although his first definitive public success came in 1955 with El mensaje (The Message). His early work lightly comments on social mores of the time, while later works were more overtly critical of the Spanish transitional government, following the death of Franco.

Themes

Salom has been writing theatre for over fifty years. In this time, his work has reflected the social concerns of each decade, leading one commentator to describe his corpus as a ‘faithful document of his epoch’ (Fernández García 1991).

• Fernández García, Joaquin. 1991. ‘Jaime Salom, el eterno joven del teatro’, La Ratonera, 3, http://www.la-ratonera.net/numero3/n3_salom.html [accessed May 2011] (Online Publication) (in Spanish)

Style

Salom’s style is a balance of classic drama and experimentalism (Fernández García 1991). Some works feature historical figures; others have a poetic, fragmented quality, such as his dreamlike 1993 work Casi una diosa (Almost a Goddess).

• Fernández García, Joaquin. 1991. ‘Jaime Salom, el eterno joven del teatro’, La Ratonera, 3, http://www.la-ratonera.net/numero3/n3_salom.html [accessed May 2011] (Online Publication) (in Spanish)

Plays in the database

• La casa de las chivas (1968) / The House of the Chivas
• El otro William (1994) / The Other William
• Un hombre en la puerta (1984) / A Man at the Door
• Historias íntimas del paraíso (c.1978) / Intimate Stories of Paradise

Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 24 May 2011.

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