José Carlos Somoza Ortega (born November 13, 1959) is a Spanish author. He was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1960 his family moved to Spain after being exiled for political reasons. His family proved to be in difficult financial situation after having moved to Spain because they had been forbidden to take anything along except their child. And there were a lot of friends who helped them a lot during their first years in Spain. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in psychiatry, but he gave up medicine in order to become a full-time writer in 1994. Since 1994 he made his first steps in writing and sent his works to the different literature competitions, to magazines and publishers all over Spain. And his first book was published the same year. When his fifth novel The Cave of Ideas obtained an international acknowledge, he realized that he had chosen the right route in his life.