José Martínez Ruiz was born in the village of Monòver, Spain in the province of Alicante on 8 June 1873.

He edited Revista de Occidente, founded by José Ortega y Gasset, a journal promoting European philosophy, from 1923 to 1936.

[2] When he returned to Spain after the Spanish Civil War, he found himself in "inner exile", along with other intellectuals who had not overtly supported the Franco regime during the conflict.

He was at first denied a press identification card (tarjeta de periodista), but was supported by Ramón Serrano Suñer, at that time Franco's Interior Minister and president of the Falange.

Accepting Franco’s regime was the price he had to pay in order to be admitted back, and he aligned with the dictatorship in a noted article in the right-wing journal Vértice.