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This is the first comprehensive study of the later novels of Spain's most honored contemporary woman writer. Brown shares unpublished letters and conversations with Carmen Martín Gaite--a dear friend whom she called Calila--to elucidate her last six novels, all of which explore themes that are highly relevant today.
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Published to coincide with the Anchor Books edition of Peel My Love Like an Onion, this Spanish translation is a major addition to the Vintage Español list. Equal parts soap opera, tragicomedy, and rhapsody, Carmen la coja is Ana Castillo's imaginative variation on the themes of Bizet's Carmen, set in the Latin community of Chicago and the seductive world of flamenco. Carmen "La Coja" Santos is a renowned local dancer who has long maintained an affair with the great Agustín, the married director of her troupe. An angry rivalry is sparked when she begins a passionate new liaison with Agusín's grandson, the gifted Manolo; her childhood polio returns; and her already aggravating relationship with her mother takes a difficult turn. But in the end, Carmen, unlike her namesake, finds her way back to happiness.
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Nada has been acclaimed as one of the best accounts of life in post-civil war Spain. It is a work that reflects the psychological and sociological effects of war on a society, particularly on its youth. It also represents the bittersweet reality of life: the price paid and the sacrifices made for personal freedom. Its setting is in 1939 Barcelona but its story is universal, for it depicts the hopes, the anxieties, and the frustrations of our time, portrayed by a young woman in search of her own identity in a society rocked by changing mores. This novel is imbued with such an array of expressionistic, impressionistic, and even some surrealistic descriptions that a literary critic states, «The finished product is a work of art, not a slice of life.» In reality, it is both of these. Although Nada is narrated in the first person, Laforet compensates for the limitation of a first-person narration by interposing dialogues among characters, thus giving the reader insight into matters that would otherwise be unknown.
A modern Spanish classic, first published sixty years ago and translated into eighteen languages, now available in English with a preface by Mario Vargas Llosa. The novel conveys beautifully the spirit of war-torn, brutalized Barcelona. From the Hardcover edition.