The writer Antonio Marichalar (Logroño, 1893-Madrid, 1973) stood out as a literary critic in the newspaper El Sol and Revista de Occidente. He was also the editor of the magazine Escorial after the Civil War and the European ambassador of the Generation of ‘27.

In 1933 he published his only book of literary essays: Mentira desnuda, which is recovered in this volume along with the booklets Palma (1923) and Girola (1926) and a wide selection of essays, written between 1923 and 1947, on the role of the critic and the paths of modern literature.

Domingo Ródenas (Cehegín, Murcia, 1963), professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, was responsible for the selection of the works, as well as writing the accompanying biography and bibliography.