AlarcónIbáñez
By Pablo Picasso.
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Alarcón is best known as the author of El sombrero de tres picos
(The Three-Cornered Hat, 1874), a retelling of a common and humorous tale full of
entertaining coincidences and mistaken identities, detailing a jealous miller's mistaken
belief that his beautiful wife is conducting an adulterous affair. This novel served
as the inspiration for the ballet by Manuel de Falla, and an opera by Hugo Wolf.
Alarcón was born in Guadix in 1833, the fourth of ten children from a once wealthy family
fallen on hard times. He initially studied law, but was forced to drop out due to
his family's precarious financial situation. He wrote his first novel, El Final
de Norma (The Final Act from Norma, 1850) and several plays and poems, but they were
poorly received.
In the 1850's he became interested in politics and wrote for several literary journals which were often extremely anti-clerical, including La Redención (Redemption) and El Látigo (The Whip), and served as a showcase for his short stories. However, his interest in politics flagged after he was challenged to a duel for his beliefs. Fortunately, his opponent magnanimously fired into the air after Alarcón's shot missed. His literary career was revitalized after publication of his account of the brief Moroccan campaign (Diario de un testigo de la guerra de África, 1859) in which he served in General O'Donnell's army and was wounded. Alarcón then renewed his interest in politics and abandoned writing for nearly a decade.
By the 1870's, the impetuous Alarcón once again changed careers and proceeded to write novels as inconsistent as every other aspect of his life. The Three-Cornered Hat is clearly his best work, but El Escándalo (The Scandal, 1875) and El Niño de la Bola (The Child with the Globe, 1880) were generally well received. Alarcón had a stroke in 1888 and died three years later in Madrid.
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Pio Baroja y Nessi was born in San Sebastian in 1872 and was one
of Spain's leading novelists in the 20th century. Although educated as a
physician, Baroja only practiced this trade briefly. He also managed the family
bakery for a short time and ran unsuccessfully on two occasions for a seat at
the Cortes (Spanish Parliament) as a Republican. Baroja's true calling was
always writing though and he began this most successful endeavor at the tender
age of 13.
His first novel was La Casa de Aizgorri (The House of Aizgorri, 1900), which is part of a trilogy called La Tierra Vasca (The Basque Country, 1900-09). This trilogy also includes El Mayorazgo de Labraz (The Lord of Labraz, 1903) which became one of his most popular novels in Spain. However, he is best known internationally by another trilogy entitled la Lucha por La Vida (The Struggle for Live, 1922-24) which offers a vivid depiction of life in Madrid's slums. His Memorias de un Hombre de Accion (Memories of a Man of Action, 1913-31) offer a depiction of one of his ancestors who lived in the Basque region during the Carlist uprising in the 19th century. This was a common setting for Baroja as he wrote over a hundred essays and three autobiographies of the Carlist era.
In keeping with Spanish literary tradition, Baroja often wrote in a pessimistic, picaresque style. His deft portrayal of the characters and settings brought the Basque region to life much as Galdos' works offered an insight into Madrid. Baroja's works were often lively, but could be lacking in plot, and are written in an abrupt, vivid, yet impersonal style. Baroja died in 1956.
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Cela is widely regarded as Spain's greatest post-Civil War writer, an
opinion validated when he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1989. He was
born in El Padrón (Galicia) in 1916 and lived primarily in Madrid and London, where he
studied law, medicine and philosophy. Cela's father was Spanish, but his mother was
English. He has published over 50 works, including novels, short stories, poems and
travel books. Cela served in Franco's army during the Civil War, but later rejected the
dictator. Like most writers of his era, much of his work was considered too controversial
for Franco's Spain and was censored for many years.
Cela's first novel, La familia de Pascual Duarte (The Family of
Pascual Duarte, 1942), signified a turning point in Spanish Literature and is possibly the
greatest Spanish novel since Galdós' Fortunata y Jacinta. This novel introduced the
world to Cela's original style, known as tremendismo or brutal realism. The
novel's "protagonist" is a ruthless killer, devoid of morality or remorse, and
the language is stark, concise and disturbing. Cela seemed to anticipate the meaningless
violence and fear modern society would later become accustomed to. It can be said
that the characters in Cela's tremendismo style are the unapologetic, modern
evolution of their delinquent and shrewd counterparts found in Spain's early picaresque
novels.
His later novels, including Mazurca para dos muertos (Mazurka For Two Dead Men, 1983), La colmena (The Hive, 1951), and Vísperas, festividad y octava de San Camilo del año 1936 in Madrid (San Camilo, 1936, 1969) exhibit an increasing use of narrative experimentation by Cela. These novels employ devices such as, lack of paragraphs, non-linear plots, and unidentified speakers. Mrs. Caldwell habla con su hijo (Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son, 1953) is another of his most highly regarded works, and is presented as a collection of disjointed letters a senile mother has written to her dead child. The novel is devoid of plot, and deals with such controversial subjects as incest. Cela founded the highly regarded Spanish literary magazine, Papeles de Son Armadans, in 1956 and later served as its editor.
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The grandmaster of Spanish literature and the father of the modern novel.
Cervantes is believed to have been born in 1547 in the town of Alcalá de Hénares.
His life itself reads like an adventure novel. Cervantes became a soldier in
Italy in 1570 and fought in the Battle of Lepanto (1571). He was injured in this
battle and lost the use of his left hand. While attempting to sail back to Spain in
1575, Cervantes was taken prisoner by Greek pirates and taken to Algiers. Miguel
attempted to escape unsuccessfully three times, before he was finally ransomed.
After returning to Spain, he struggled to make a living writing and was unhappily married to Catalina de Salazar y Palacios. Cervantes was jailed at least two times for debt and falsifying bookkeeping records. He did not achieve success until later in life. In fact his most productive and successful period was from around 1606 until his death in 1616.
Don Quixote was released in two "installments" beginning in 1605. It met with immediate success and secured his position as the writer of one of the greatest novels in history. Don Quixote is a voluminous work which satirized the romantic notions of this period, chivalric novels, as well as Spanish society. It effectively blends humor, adventure and romance with an exploration of idealism versus realism. Its primary characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza) have achieved immortality and the novel has served as inspiration for many subsequent works of art, including musicals, plays and painting.
Cervantes wrote his Novelas Ejemplares (Exemplary Stories,1613) concurrently with Don Quixote and this is the only other work which I have been able to find translated into English. They are a delightful collection of novellas primarily in the style of the picaresque novel. His first novel was entitled La Galatea (1585), but it was not well received. Although Cervantes is primarily associated with the novel, he also produced several collections of poetry and several plays. Several of these can be found in various collections of Spanish prose and drama.
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Second only to Cervantes in stature, Galdós was a prolific writer with
over 60 works to his credit. Galdós was born in Las Palmas, Canary Islands in 1843
where he remained until moving to Madrid at the age of 19. This had a profound
effect on him both because of the liberation from his domineering mother and the exposure
to ideas such as anti-clericalism. Galdós is often compared to Dickens, Balzac and
Tolstoy, each of whom he freely admits were major influences.
Galdós wrote in three basic groups: Drama, for which I believe no English translations are available, resulted in some success and notoriety (His play Electra caused anti-clerical rioting in 1901), but has not generally lasted the test of time. The Episodios nacionales, which comprise 50 volumes, are a series of historical fiction in which Galdós portrays Spain's history from the Peninsular War's to the Bourbon restoration. They are written through the eyes of fictional characters in order to give readers more relevance to the present day. Sadly, I have not been able to find any English Translations of the Episodios nacionales.
His third and best group is his novelas españolas contemporáneas, which were written concurrently with the Episodios nacionales. These are works of fiction set in Madrid which portray the lives of a divergent group of character's who breath life into the late 19th century city. Galdós took the novel approach of having character's appear and reappear in various books, often with a significantly different portrayal of them, depending on each narrator's viewpoint. He was particularly adept at describing the "lower classes" and often explored the uniquely Spanish concept of quedar bien. This is a tendency to pretend that everything is going well, when in fact you may be on the verge of financial (and/or emotional) collapse. His female characters, in particular, would exhibit pretenses of affluence by attending plays frequently, dressed in new, exotic gowns, while actually having to rely on a lover or some creative financial machinations to keep up this lifestyle without letting anyone realize their true predicament. His masterpiece is the voluminous Fortunata y Jacinta (1886-7), but I have enjoyed all of his translated novels, including: Misericordia (1897), Doña Perfecta (1876), La de Bringas (1884), Nazarín (1895) and Miau.
He never married but conducted numerous affairs (including with fellow writer, Emilia Pardo Bazan), and had several illegitimate offspring. Galdós suffered from poor vision throughout his life, but actually went blind in 1912 which understandably slowed his output. His chance at long-lasting international fame was sabotaged by his own jealous countrymen, when they launched a slander campaign against him after learning that he would be nominated for the Nobel Prize. This was a terrible injustice, which subverted the future legitimacy of all contemporary Spanish literature. A statue to Galdós was constructed in Retiro Park in Madrid shortly before his death, financed solely by public contributions. Perhaps the "common people" he wrote so much about understood his rightful place in Spanish culture, more than his less talented and envious peers ever could.
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Valencian novelist, travel writer and politician born in 1867.
Ibáñez achieved what most other Spanish writers only dreamed of - International
popularity. Unfortunately, his popularity was short-lived as it is exceedingly
difficult to find an English translation of his works in print today. Vicente was a
member of the Republican party and editor of El Pueblo, an antimonarchist
newspaper. In 1896, he was arrested because of his political views and actions and
served nearly two years hard labor. Vicente was eventually exiled from Spain after Primo
de Rivera assumed power in 1923. Due to the popularity of his later works, Ibáñez was a very wealthy man when he passed away in 1928
His novels can be easily classified into basic genres: regional, psychological, historical and Cosmopolitan. Ibáñez achieved his greatest success from the cosmopolitan European novels, of which Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1916) is the best. This is a tragic and suspenseful novel of World War I and its' effects on society. Other novels in this genre include: Mare Nostrum (1918), and Los enemigos de la mujer (1919), both of which are also war novels.
His best novels are of the regional genre, which take place in his native Valencia. These are his earliest works and they offer an intensely vivid depiction of the social problems affecting this region and realistically portray the lives of Valencia's citizens, including bullfighters, fishermen, and politicians. Vicente's masterpiece, Cañas y Barro (Reeds and Mud, 1902), falls within this genre and successfully transports the reader into the small fishing village of Albufera. This novel effectively depicts the bitter conflict between different generations of fishermen, interlaced with a tragic love story of forbidden love and its' shocking consequences. Other novels in this genre include: Arroz y Tartana (1894), Flor de Mayo (1895), La Barraca (The Cabin, 1898) and Entre Naranjos (1900). Ibáñez died in Menton, France on Jan. 28, 1928.
