[2] When the Republican side lost the war, he exiled in Buenos Aires, where he spent ten years.

[1] He later went to the United States, where he taught Spanish Literature at the Universities of Princeton, Rutgers, New York and Chicago, though he maintained a close intellectual and cultural bond with Puerto Rico, where other noted Spaniards such as Pablo Casals and Juan Ramón Jiménez were also exiled.

Both tale collections feature a metaphorical style, stylistically brilliant, with a lack of interest in the anecdotal and a fascination for the modern world.

After a long silence, Ayala begun his second stage in exile with El hechizado (The Bewitched, 1944), a tale of a Creole man trying to meet King Charles II of Spain (known as the Bewitched), which became part of Los usurpadores (The Usurpers, 1949), a collection of seven narrations with the common theme of lust for power.

Ayala gets closer here to Kafka's existential and absurd world, including an implicit critic to the immorality and stupidity of power.

La cabeza del cordero (The Lamb Head, 1949) is a collection of tales on the Civil War, where he pays more attention to the analysis of passions and human behaviour than to the relation of outside developments.

Muertes de perro (Dog Deaths, 1958) denounced the situation of a country under a dictatorship, while presenting human degradation in a world with no values.

El fondo del vaso (The Bottom of the Glass, 1962) complements his previous novel, which is commented by several characters.

The latest features a contrast between the satyric objectivity in the first part, Diablo mundo (Devil World), and the evocative, subjective and lyrical tone in the second, Días felices (Happy Days).

Ayala was also a prolific essay writer, covering political and social aspects, as well as reflections on Spain's past and present, cinema and literature.