Corin Tellado, Spains most prolific romantic novelist whose books sold over 400 million copies died Saturday in the northern city of Gijon, a hospital official said. She was 81. Tellado published around 4,000 books in a career that spanned over five decades, leading her to be listed in the 1994 Guinness World Records as the author who has sold the most books written in Spanish, her website said.
"Corin Tellados vast production of works will remain as a sociocultural phenomena," Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa once said of her. Born Maria del Socorro Tellado Lopez on April 25, 1927 in the northern fishing village of Viavelez, her other pseudonyms included Ada Miller Leswy, Ada Miller or simply Ada Miller.
Tellado credited the right-wing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco which lasted until his death in 1975 for shaping her discreet style. "As for my style, it was censorship that dictated it. Some novels came back with so much underlined text that all you could see was black.