Alejandro Gándara first gained recognition with his debut novel, La media distancia (1984), while he was a professor of History of Ideas at the Complutense University of Madrid. From then on, he combined his teaching duties with his work as a writer. In 1989, he founded the Escuela de las Letras, and in 2000, the Escuela Contemporánea de Humanidades. Through these projects, he delved into research on the relationships between language and healing, grief and loss, and thinking in images. He has taught courses on these topics at universities in Spain and abroad, as well as in psychiatry departments specializing in palliative care. He has served as editor of the Libros supplement for El País, as an editorial writer and columnist for that same newspaper, and as a regular contributor to ABC. In 2026, he published Los textos robados a la felicidad which won the 4th Eugenio Trías Essay Prize.