Matute, Ana María
Matute, Ana María
(ä`nä märē`ä mäto͞o`tā), 1926–2014, Spanish novelist, b. Barcelona. Much of her fiction, which has been translated into more than 20 languages, reflects her searing experiences as a preadolescent during the Spanish civil warSpanish civil war,1936–39, conflict in which the conservative and traditionalist forces in Spain rose against and finally overthrew the second Spanish republic. The Second Republic
..... Click the link for more information. . In simple, delicate prose she wrote of isolation, suffering, and anguish. As characters in her novels she favored children, adolescents, and the humble and rejected. Her works include Los Abel (1948), Fiesta al noroeste (1952; tr. Celebration in the Northwest, 1997), Los hijos muertos (1958; tr. The Lost Children, 1965), and Los soldados lloran de noche (1977; tr. Soldiers Cry by Night, 1995). Matute's wartime experiences are reflected in three semiautobiographical novels, Primera memoria (1963; tr. First Memory, in School of the Sun, 1989), La trampa (1973; tr. The Trap, 1996), and Luciérnagas (1993, tr. Fireflies, 1998). Several of her short stories were translated in The Heliotrope Wall and Other Stories (1989). She also wrote children's books and young adult novels. Matute was the recipient of many of Spain's important awards, including the Cervantes Prize (2010).
Bibliography
See studies by M. E. W. Jones (1970) and J. W. Díaz (1971).
Matute, Ana María
Born July 26, 1926, in Barcelona, Spain. Spanish writer. A representative of critical realism in modern Spanish literature.
Matute’s work, especially in its early phase, has tragic overtones; it is full of social criticism and psychological probings. Many of her protagonists are victims of the Franco regime, for example, in her novel The Abels (1948). The novel Dead Sons (1958; Russian translation, 1964) depicts the tragedy of Spanish youth during the first years of the dictatorship. In the trilogy The Hucksters, which consists of the novels First Memories(1960), Soldiers Weep at Night(1964- Russian translation, 1969), and The Trap (1969), Matute gives a critical interpretation of life in Spain during recent decades; in this work, a member of the Communist underground is the bearer of the ideas of struggle and service to mankind. Matute is the author of children’s books, including Foolish Children (1956) and Pauline, the World and the Stars (1960).
WORKS
Obra completa, vol. 1. Barcelona, 1971.La torre vígía. Barcelona, 1971.
In Russian translation:
Schast’e: Rasskazy. Moscow, 1966.
“Grazhdanskaia voina i pisateli moego pokoleniia.” Inostrannaia literatura, “1966, no. 9.
REFERENCES
Iasnyi, V. K. Begstvo v deistvitel’nost’: Sovremennyi ispanskii roman. Moscow, 1971.Terterian, I., Sovremennyi ispanskii roman (1939-1969). Moscow, 1972.
Fuentes, V. “Notas sobre el mundo novelesco de A. M. Matute.” Revista nacional de cultura, 1963, no. 160, pp. 83-88.
Jones, M. E. W. The Literary World of Ana María Matute. Lexington, Ky., 1970. (Bibliography, pp. 123-30.)
V. K. IASNYI