In Biografía del silencio (2012), Pablo d’Ors presents meditation as a practice of silence and attention that can encourage self-knowledge. Separately, d’Ors founded the Amigos del Desierto meditation network. A writer and priest, he has pursued a career spanning literary fiction and spiritual reflection.

From the novel to the trilogy of silence

Pablo d’Ors’s career as a novelist began in 2000 with Las ideas puras, a finalist for the Herralde Prize. His novels also include Andanzas del impresor Zollinger (2003), adapted for the stage and performed in Italy in 2011, El estupor y la maravilla, and Lecciones de ilusión. El estreno (2000), his first published book, is a collection of short stories.

The so-called trilogy of silence brings together El amigo del desierto (2009), Biografía del silencio, and El olvido de sí (2013). The books combine fiction and nonfiction: the first is a work of fiction, the second reflects on meditation, and the third pays tribute to Charles de Foucauld, explorer and hermit. Rather than a series of books belonging to a single genre, the trilogy shows how d’Ors revisits the search for inner life through different forms.

Attention, slowness, and inner life

In Biografía del silencio, meditation is presented not as intellectual reflection but as an exercise in stillness and attention. In a conversation about the book, d’Ors connected the practice with the slowness of everyday tasks: pausing to focus on what one is doing, listening, and not rushing to respond. This approach is also related to the interest in self-knowledge and silence that runs through his public work and his work with Amigos del Desierto.

D’Ors studied philosophy and theology in Rome, Prague, and Vienna, and earned his doctorate in Rome in 1996 with a thesis on theology and literary experience. He was ordained a priest in 1991 and combined pastoral work with teaching dramaturgy and theological aesthetics. In 2014, he founded Amigos del Desierto and was appointed a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope Francis.