Tomás Graves was born in Palma de Mallorca in 1953 and raised in Deià.
Married and with a daughter, he is a writer, musician and craftsman printer.
After translating Guy de Forestier's local best-seller Beloved Majorcans (Olañeta Editores) into English and writing a preface to this edition, he wrote 'Un Hogar en Mallorca' in Spanish, which he translated as 'A Home in Majorca: a Practical Guide to the Traditional House and Rural Life' (Olañeta).
With a wry sense of humour, reflected in Pere Joan's line drawings, he covers topics from whitewashing to water rights, from neighbourly relations to garden pests. It contains a twenty-page English-Catalan glossary and pronunciation guide. Both these books are available in (or can be ordered through) bookshops throughout the Balearics, such as El Corte Inglés in Palma or Calabruix in Sóller.
A Home in Majorca was followed by 'Volem Pa Amb Oli' (Olañeta) which he wrote in Catalan and translated into English as 'Bread & Oil: Majorcan Culture's Last Stand'. This was published in the UK by Prospect Books (with line drawings and eight full colour illustrations by Majorcan artists) and subsequently in the US by the University of Wisconsin Press (hard cover with no illustrations; both editions are available through Amazon). Bread & Oil is a view of the Mediterranean peasant diet and how it has been recuperated by a new generation of urban Majorcans, for whom it symbolises a sense of identity and a healthier way of life. Bread & Oil was chosen by food writer Elizabeth Louard as her Book of the Year 2000 for the Good Book Guide, and was runner up in the British Guild of Food Writers awards for that year.
His most recent work is Tuning Up at Dawn, first published by 4th Estate (Harper Collins) in November 2004 and subsequently in paperback (August 2005) by Harper Perennial. It was serialised by BBC Radio Four in their Book of the Week slot. On this page you will find photos and sound files related to the book as well as some reviews and readers' comments.