"El guion cinematografico como pre-texto literario. La obra de Rafael Azcona" studies the artistic evolution of one of Spain's most distinguished and prolific film scriptwriters, Rafael Azcona, who has had a decisive role in shaping Spanish cinema since the 1950s. In spite of the fact that film professionals recognize his fundamental contributions to filmmaking, relatively little attention has been paid to his written. Moreover, criticism has virtually ignored the substantial body of fiction that he has produced. The goal of my thesis is to see how an examination of Azcona's role as fiction writer broadly construed--encompassing his work as a writer of fiction and his work as a screenwriter--positions him as one of contemporary Spain's most important cultural critics. This reading allows for the reconsideration of Azcona as a persistent champion of civil society against the pressures of dictatorship and the possible abuse of capital, one whose use of acerbic humor places him in the tradition of Goya and Valle Inclan and aligns his narrative with the tradition reestablished by Luis Martin-Santos in the early 1960s. My point of departure is the consideration of Azcona's opus informed by Bordwell's seminal work on the relationship between fiction writing and film. My grounding in cultural theory and contemporary Spanish studies allows me to contextualize Azcona's work and make the case for his consideration as a foundational figure in Spanish cultural production during and after Franco's dictatorship.