Photo: Kenji Kamio

Ramon Vilaró, was born in Vic, Barcelona , Spain in 1945. Journalist and writer, since 1968 has been correspondent in Brussels for the Spanish newspapers s Madrid, El Correo Catalán, Ya and El Correo Español-Pueblo Vasco. He was the editor and executive director of the newsletter INFOREUROPA.

From 1976 to 1989 has bean the correspondent of the leading Spanish newspaper El País, in Brussels, Washington D.C. and Tokio. He was the deputy editor in Catalonia, Spain of the editorial Grupo16, and for the economic newspaper Cinco Días (Grupo Prisa, editor of El País ) and he was a columnist for daily La Vanguardia, in Barcelona. Nowadays he writes and is a member of the editorial board of the weekly Cambio16 and the monthly Cuadernos para el Diálogo and collaborates with several magazines and newspapers ( El Pais Viajes, National Geographic, Paisajes, El Triangle, LaCosta and several others).

He published several non fiction books; EE.UU, más allá de las hamburguesas y los pantalones vaqueros (El País, 1984), Japón, más allá del video y de las geishas (El Pais-Aguilar 1989) and travel stories in Catalan: Nova York i Washington ( La Magrana 1994).

He has written and directed a series for television, a 6x30´ Made in Barcelona , a documentary for the Spanish TVE channel and the Japanese public television NHK, in 1992, and Miró, la llum the Mallorca ( Miró, the light of Mallorca ), a documentary for the Catalan television channel TV3, in 1993.

He is the author of the narrative novels Dainichi, la epopeya de Francisco Javier en Japón ( Dainichi, the epic of Saint Francisco Xavier in Japan ) (Martínez Roca 2001), Tabaco, el imperio de los marqueses de Comillas ( Tobacco, The Empire of the Marquis of Comillas ) and La Ultima Conquista. La secreta historia de amor de Luna Clara durante el descubrimiento de la Alta California ( The last conquest. One history of love in the discovery of the Alta California ) (Martínez Roca, 2005)

His latest book of non fiction, Gringolandia, un retrato de EE.UU. y su relación con España ( Gringolandia, a portait of the US and his relationship with Spain ), was published in 2004, by Martinez Roca-Grupo Planeta.

The novel Dainichi has been reprinted in paperback by EntreLibros (Coleccion Puzzle) and has been published in Japanese by Heibonsha (2011) under the title of Samurai and Christ, and bought for te prime minister Naoto Kan. It has been made for television, as a documentary HD edited and co-directed by his author and Gonzalo Robledo under the name Javier, el legado de Fco. Javier en Japón ( The legacy of Francis Xavier in Japan ) for the fifth Centennial of Francis Xavier anniversary, celebrated in 2006. It was released for television, film festivals and in DVD format in Spanish, Euskera, English, French and Japanese.

Tabaco , the novel, was reedited with 40.000 issues under the series La Historia de España Novelada ( Spanish history in novel fashion ) of the Spanish newspaper ABC (Number 17 in the series of august 2006).

Now the author is working on a new book, Sol Naciente. Historias hispano-japonesas ( Rising Sun. Spanish-Japanese Stories ) (Editorial RBA) to be published in November 2011 and is working for the pre-production of the film XAVIER , based on his novel Dainichi , together with the filmmaker Gonzalo Robledo, a Colombian living in Tokio and the American movie director Nancy Savoca.