Juan Serrano Oteiza

[1] His father taught him the craft of fan making, but he devoted his life to political activism.

[2] Later, he joined "Fomento de las Artes", a center for popular education, becoming its First Secretary and one of its most influential members.

[3] In 1869, under the influence of Giuseppe Fanelli, he became one of the first members of the new provisional section of the First International (AIT) in Madrid,[4] Following the dissolution of that organization in 1873, he and Tomás González Morago established El Orden [es] (The Command), a clandestine journal that was published from 1875 to 1878.

His best work is generally considered to be the utopian novel Pensativo (roughly, "Thinkable") which was widely distributed and, in 1885, won first prize at the "Primer Certamen Socialista"; a promotion of the FTRE in Reus.

[3] Its narrative involves a group of people who explore and settle an inhospitable valley; transforming it into the "promised paradise" by employing collectivist principles.