This one is a Spanish classical novel written by a woman who is almost forgotten today although she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times and she was very close to actually being awarded it at least twice.

The Metal of the Dead is often referred to as a socialist novel, a genre that was a bit in fashion in the early twentieth century. So shortly after the Russian Revolution socialist ideology had not yet a bad reputation, but people still set their hopes in it everywhere in the world including the mining area of Rio Tinto in Andalusia that is the main scene of this novel that is considered her best. The plot deals with a general strike that was called there around 1917... and the joys and sorrows of the miners and their families.

For the full review please click here to go to my main book blog Edith’s Miscellany.

The Metal of the Dead - Concha Espina,Anna-Marie Aldaz 

Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, George Sand, Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the three Brontë sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne, George Eliot… those are prominent names of nineteenth-century literature still in print. Who hasn’t heard them at least once or twice? In fact, almost everybody knows those women writers almost everywhere in the world. They keep being widely read and their books surely are on many school reading lists. But how about Emilia Pardo Bazán? Who still remembers her outside the Spanish-speaking world?

Emilia Pardo Bazán was a well-read and very open-minded noblewoman from Galicia. She introduced the literary movements of realism and naturalism, which she got to know and appreciate in France, into Spanish literature. Her work and her opinions made her – like Émile Zola in France – the target of much polemic in the deeply conservative Roman Catholic country, and yet, she was never discouraged to continue on her way. Instead of listening to her husband who wanted her to give up writing she separated from him to be free to publish whatever she liked.

Click here to read my portrait of this important and impressive Spanish writer.

The scene of Nada is Barcelona and the story begins in autumn 1939, maybe a year or two later. The protagonist is 18-year-old Andrea, an orphan from the province arriving at the Estación de Francia after many hours on the train. It’s midnight and on her way to the Calle de Aribau where she is going to stay with the relatives of her dead mother she experiences a first taste of freedom, away from the narrowness of the village, of the convent school and of life with her cousin who took care of her after her father’s death. Andrea is looking forward to the independence which being a student of literature promises, but in her new home she is received by a bizarre assembly of people in a decayed flat crammed with the relics of a prosperous past. Her family draws Andrea into a nightmarish world which is filled with all the big and small tragedies of home life reigned by penury and hunger. As often as possible she flees the oppressive and depressing atmosphere in the Calle de Aribau to roam the city and spend time with her well-to-do friends from university, above all with Ena. Without her friend Andrea sinks even deeper into loneliness and sadness. In the end things take a new turn for Andra.

Nada is a first-person narrative with all its limits and advantages. In some aspects the book reminds of Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse and J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In reality Carmen Laforet’s masterpiece is their neglected precursor, though, since it was written and published almost a decade earlier. However, the historical background of Nada makes it much more than just the story of a girl who is coming of age in a grotesque environment.

I definitely enjoyed the read although in Spanish it was a bit of a struggle as usual. Carmen Laforet's Nada would deserve much more attention from readers worldwide.

To read the complete review please click here to go to my blog Edith's Miscellany.

In The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafón interweaves the threads of different stories into an intricate pattern forming the whole of the novel. Several plots are running side by side or one within the other, but they are all well balanced and the story gowes smoothly despite all.

The story revolving around Daniel Sempere and his search for traces of the writer Julián Carax is set in Barcelona. It starts in summer 1945. His father, the owner of a little bookshop, takes the ten-year-old to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret place in the old town to which only the initiated have access. There the boy is allowed to take one book from the shelves under the condition that he promises to be its guardian for the rest of his life. He picks a volume with a handsome binding that shows the name Julián Carax and the title The Shadow of the Wind inscribed on its cover. Of course, Daniel begins to read the book as soon as he is back at home in his room above the bookshop. The novel engrosses the boy and he spends the whole night reading it until the end. Then he searches for other books of the writer, but only encounters mystery because Julián Carax and his books seem to have disappeared without trace. After his initial enthusiasm Daniel slowly forgets about the book.

Years later a mysterious man smelling of burnt paper is after Daniel and claims the book from him. This is the starting point of a new quest that reveals the tragic history of Julián Carax, his love and his writings. Daniel is drawn dangerously deep into the life of the author, but along the way he grows up, makes friends with a former political prisoner of the Franco regime and meets his love Bea.

For the full review please click here to go to my blog Edith's Miscellany!