Rosa Regas next Director of the National Library of Spain

According to government sources, the author Rosa Regas will be named on Friday, after the weekly Cabinet meeting, as the new Director of the National Library of Spain.

Born in 1933, Regas is one of Spain's most respected contemporary authors even though she started her career as a novelist quite late on. According to her personal website, in 1983 nearing her 50th birthday, she suddenly thought "I've had lots of children and I've planted lots of trees, but at this rate I'll die without having ever written a book". Six years later she published her first book.

In 2001 Regas was awarded the Premio Planeta, Spain's most prestigious literary prize, for her book La Cancion de Dorotea which she signed with a pen-name. In the speech she made when accepting the prize, worth over half a million euros, Rosa said "It is difficult for me to express the emotion I am feeling. I am delighed, because I am going to reach a wider audience, but above all, because at last I am going to be able to buy something I've always wanted to buy for myself: time".

She will have to give some of her new-found time up now in her new post at the National Library. Most literary experts will applaud the appointment of this popular, progressive Spanish writer as Director of one of the country's most prized cultural institutions. Rosa Regas has five children and eleven grandchildren.