Writer and journalist born in Madrid in 1943, although his whole life has been linked to the Basque Country.
Although as a young man he devoted himself to music, theatre - he worked in Antonio Buero Vallejo's company - and cinema, he has lived literature as a profession and a passion. As he has ed, it is precisely writing that has had the greatest impact on him.
He first came to the Basque Country with his family, to spend the summer in Deba (Gipuzkoa), where he has lived since the early seventies. His father, of the same name, was also one of the most ingenious writers of La Codorniz, in whose magazine Castellano began to publish his first stories. Castellano's literary adventure has been his entire dedication to it. From a very young age, in 1961, he began to publish stories in the magazine La Codorniz, under different pseudonyms, the most common being R. Castleman, but also others, such as Falete, Faletenko, etc. In this magazine, in which he wrote until his disappearance, he published hundreds of stories for the section Tiemble después de haber reído, which he would later summarise in the book of the same title (1975), becoming a true classic of suspense fiction. As a result, he is included in several anthologies of the noir genre. He has subsequently published other novels, such as La viuda (1978) and Los anafroditas (1984).
He has been writing in newspapers and magazines since his arrival in the Basque Country, with opinion articles, interviews, art criticism, reports and miscellaneous articles. He began in the newspaper La Voz de España (San Sebastián), later collaborating in El Diario Vasco in the same city and, for a long time, in Egin. He has also written on cultural issues for the newspaper El País, and on general issues for the magazine Interviú.
If literature shapes his professional life, his relationship with Euskal Herria has been definitive. He learned Basque, a language in which he has written numerous newspaper articles. This is also attested to by the essays he has devoted to issues such as those reflected in his own titles: Cosas, anecdotario de Euskalherria (1976), Vascos heréticos (1977), Erotismo vasco (1977), Sutondoan. Sombras y quimeras de Eusko Lur (1980), Misterio de Vizcaya (1981), Guía de Madrid para vascos (1987).
Castellano was a member of several Basque magazines in the seventies of the 20th century, such as Kurpil and Euskadi Sioux; he was also a main contributor to Kantil and Punto y Hora de Euskal Herria .
Castellano, who studied Dramatic Art (1961-64), devoted himself as an actor to the theatre for several years, working in different professional companies, as well as that of the actress Nuria Espert. He also acted in several films in supporting roles. He has written several screenplays for the cinema, translated into feature films: Mar adentro (1985), Bandera negra (1986), Eskorpion (1987) and Los vascos y el mar (1987).
One of his most celebrated books, in which he exudes the sense of humour that is present in much of his literary work, is La cocina romántica (R & B Ediciones), in which Castellano displays his knowledge of gastronomy and bromatology, while portraying the history, customs and daily life of the 19th century. It is an atypical cookbook, as its recipe book is not about measuring but, as the author assures us, about applying seasonings sometimes ‘by eye’. The experiences of some of the writer's own ancestors enrich a book in which the overflowing imagination of the author appears, who considers that ‘if we call gastronomy culture, it is because we have already given it up for lost’. La cocina romántica, which offers three recipes in its preamble (fig bread, madeleines and almond scones), has these chapters: ‘El seno nutricio y las papillas’, “Cocido madrileño”, “Olla española y algunas sopas”, “Frituras y fritangas (patatas fritas, empanadillas y frituras varias)”, “El futuro está en la mar”, “De la mar, el marisco”, “Románticos pero conservadores (conservas)”, “Mundo, demonio y carnes”, “Asados y asaduras, Caza”. ‘Dishes of hair and feathers’, “Vegetables, vegetarians and omnivores” and “Legumes: energy and borborigmos”. Finally, he devotes these chapters to desserts: ‘Al fin y a la postre’, ‘El rito de la merienda’, ‘Dulce y agitado romanticismo en las Américas’ and ‘La vieja alquimia del helado o sorbete’.
Castellano has created characters and scripts for comics, particularly the series of eight encyclopaedic volumes Gabai. Historia de Nuestro Pueblo, published by the Lur imprint. It is a work conceived as an epic, in which the character created by Castellano delves into the thousand daily adventures of the life and history of the Basques through time. Later, in 1996, the character of Gabai gave his name to another series -Collection Basques with History. Adventures of Gabai con.-, dedicated to the recognition of personalities from Basque history, produced by the same publishing house for the newspapers El Correo and El Diario Vasco. To this series must be added the script for a comic book dedicated to Iñigo de Loiola. This series, in which some of the scripts are no longer by Castellano, is the result of the following, in which a good part of the team of collaborators of the first volumes of the original Gabai work:
- Koldo Mitxelena, Script: Joxean Muñoz, (with characters by Rafael Castellano), Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Iturri
- Elcano, Script: Rafael Castellano, Drawings: Juan Luis Landa, Color: Ivan Landa
- Berceo, Script: Rafael Castellano, Drawings: Jose Angel Lopetegi, Colour: Ivan Landa
- Etxepare, Script: Joxean Muñoz, (With characters by Rafael Castellano), Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Aintzane Domenech
- Elhuyar, Script: Joxean Muñoz (With characters by Rafael Castellano), Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Aintzane Domenech
- Gayarre, Script: Rafael Castellano, Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Ángel Turrillas
- Iradier, Script: Joxean Muñoz (With characters by Rafael Castellano), Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Iturri
- Axular, Script: Joxean Muñoz (With characters by Rafael Castellano), Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Aintzane Domenech
- María de Maeztu, Script: Rafael Castellano, Drawings: Juan Luis Landa, Colour: Ivan Landa
- Benjamín de Tudela, Script: Rafael Castellano, Drawings: Juan Luis Landa, Colour: Ángel Turrillas
- Los Baroja, Script: Joxean Muñoz (With characters by Rafael Castellano), Drawings: José Ángel Lopetegi, Colour: Iturri
- Aita Barandiarán, Script: Rafael Castellano, Drawings: Juan Luis Landa, Colour: Ángel Turrillas
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