It is a coming of age tale, a intimate glimpse into a young woman's existential crisis, a complex and unresolved display of class and gender inequality. Yet the physical, intellectual and cultural destruction of the war are personified in the wretched and brutal family of aunts, uncles and grandmother with which Andrea spends her first year of university. This novel is set in Barcelona in the early 1940's, but as Mario Vargas Llosa notes in his introduction, references to the Spanish Civil War are very few and vague. The writer presents her characters without judgment, unrolls a plot that is simple in the outline but incredibly nuanced in the detail, a story that is so utterly of its era and location yet timeless in its themes. To me, this novel represents literary perfection.
With crystalline insight into the human condition, Carmen Laforet’s classic novel stands poised to reclaim its place as one of the great novels of twentieth-century Europe. And Mario Vargas Llosa’s Introduction illuminates Laforet’s brilliant depiction of life during the early days of the Franco regime. The incomparable Edith Grossman’s vital new translation captures the feverish energy of Laforet’s magnificent story, showcasing its dark, powerful imagery, and its subtle humor. From existential crisis to a growing maturity and resolve, Andrea’s passionate inner journey leaves her wiser, stronger, and filled with hope for the future.
As experience overtakes innocence, Andrea gradually learns the disquieting truth about the people she shares her life with: her overbearing and superstitious aunt Angustias her nihilistic yet artistically gifted uncle Román and his violent brother Juan and Juan’s disturbingly beautiful wife, Gloria, who secretly supports the clan with her gambling. Residing amid genteel poverty in a mysterious house on Calle de Aribau, young Andrea falls in with a wealthy band of schoolmates who provide a rich counterpoint to the squalor of her home life. Loosely based on the author’s own life, it is the story of an orphaned young woman who leaves her small town to attend university in war-ravaged Barcelona. Carmen Laforet’s Nada ranks among the most important literary works of post-Civil War Spain.
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