Sáez Castán (Huesca, 1964). Studied Fine Arts specialising in Drawing at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. He set up in Alicante where he started to work as an illustrator.

In 2000, he wrote and illustrated his first picture book, Picopelosplumas y el hombre pájaro (Ediciones SM). This marked a before and after in the professional life of Castán who decided to focus on the creation of illustrated books. He followed Picopelosplumas with Los tres erizos (Ekaré, 2003); Animalario Universal del Profesor Revillod (Economic Culture Fund, 2004); La merienda del Señor Verde (Ekaré, 2007); Soñario o diccionario de sueños del Dr. Maravillas (Océano 2008); El pequeño Rey (Ekaré 2009); El armario chino (Ekaré, 2016); Extraños (Sexto piso, 2014); Limoncito. Un cuento de Navidad (Océano, 2010) and many other books.

His work has received many awards and distinctions. His Animalario Universal del Profesor Revillod, translated into dozens of languages, was recognised as the Best illustrated book by FILIJ Mexico in 2004; the Golden Book Key awarded it to Prize for the best book published in 2011 in the Dutch language and the Banco del Libro de Venezuela gave it their award in 2005. In 2007, the National Chamber of the Mexican Publishing Industry gave the award to Objetos ¿conocidos? Four of his picture books are selected by the Internationale Jugendbibliotehek in Munich for The White Ravens. And, in 2009, he won the Nostra Prize at the International Book Fair of Guadalajara (Mexico) for La venganza de Edison, and Banco del Libro de Venezuela chooses Best Book of the Year La merienda del Señor Verde.

For his collection of work, Castán received the Mención de Honor del Premio Iberoamericano de Literatura Infantil de la Fundación SM 2018 and was twice nominated (2011 and 2012) for the ALMA Award (Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award), the top international prize for children’s and youth literature.

In 2016, Castán received the National Illustration Award recognising and distinguishing the work performed by a Spanish illustrator in the field of Spanish books and letters; the jury highlighted “his creativity and narrative talent which involves the objectual dimension of the book; due to his ability to create worlds and infect them; due to the quality of his works, many of them are great modern classics with an international dimension and due to his generosity as an educator”.

In 2017 he receives the VII International Picture Book Award granted by the Cabildo de Gran Canaria by Dorothy, with text by Castán and illustrations by Pablo Auladell.

In 2018 the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome awarded him one of his prestigious scholarships in the specialty of comics.