Carmen De Burgos

This book offers the complete text of three novellas, along with vocabulary and explanatory notes to make them fully accessible to learners of Spanish from post-GCSE level and upwards. The introduction provides background on the author and her position in Spanish cultural, political and literary history, and on the history of feminism in Spain. -- .

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Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932), an influential journalist, socio-political activist, and a key literary figure in the cultural ferment of pre-war Madrid, is currently being rediscovered, having languished in a long and regrettable oblivion during the Franco years. This scholarly edition of three stories by de Burgos includes the unabridged texts, vocabulary, notes, chronology, bibliography, 'temas de debate y discusión', and a critical introduction. Confidencias is the fictional diary of a young woman, describing her first adulterous relationship and exploiting the narratological possibilities of the diary form. La mujer fría is a vampire story featuring perhaps the very first pitiable vampire, or at least one of the earliest examples of this type, whilst ingeniously maintaining undecidability as to whether the protagonist is supernatural. Puñal de claveles narrates a wedding-day elopement. Inspired by the real-life 'Crimen de Níjar', Federico García Lorca drew on both stories for his Bodas de sangre. -- .