Raúl Hernández Garrido, playwright, film-maker, novelist and scriptwriter. Founding member of the Teatro del Astillero (www.teatrodelastillero.es ), his theatre had been honoured by some national awards, including the Calderón de la Barca prize in 1994 for Los malditos (The Damned) and the Lope de Vega prize for Los engranajes (The Gears) in 1997. In 2000, Hernández adapted Los engranajes in a movie entitled Antes de morir piensa en mí (Think on Me Before You Die). Hernández’s plays are often dark and atmospheric. Love, lust, hatred and betrayal all feature, as contemporary issues are presented in a way that mixes the everyday with the mythical, or the fantastical. More details about Raúl Hernández’s life and work can be found on his personal website, at http://hernandezgarrido.com. A selection of his work in english is avalible at http://www.outofthewings.org/db/autho..., translated and edited by Gwynneth Dowling. Raúl Hernández’s theatre is highly experimental. He engages audiences in contemporary issues through plays that are a mixture of the real and the fantastical. His professional experience as a documentary and film-maker has influenced his dramatic style, so that his plays are often quite cinematic, featuring a large amount of atmospheric imagery. Often, in fact, the atmosphere he strives to create takes precedence over plot. This forms part of his interest in finding new ways of writing, challenging audiences and forcing them to become an integral part of the dramatic experience. With reference to Los malditos (The Damned) for example, Hernández talks about adhering to a ‘dramaturgy of destruction’, in which characters are pushed to the limits of psychological and physical exhaustion, and in which spectators must make an effort to make sense of a deliberately hermetic plot. Raúl Hernández writes about the meaningless of modern society; his work is marked by a general sense of dissatisfaction at the world. His plays are populated by characters displaying very human – and often negative – traits. Love, jealousy, betrayal and hatred all feature. One of the interesting things about the way he presents his vision of society and humanity is his use of figures from classic Greek tragedy, such as Agamemnon. Tragedy is fundamental to his work, as he manipulates its form and its themes in an effort to bring something new to theatre, to revitalise the medium so that audiences can take something fresh from it. Monleón, Ángela. 1995. ‘De la escritura, la historia y sus personajes’, Primer Acto, 260, 54-6. Available at http://parnaseo.uv.es/ars/Autores/Her... [accessed November 2010] (Online Publication) (in Spanish)