Pardo Bazán, Emilia

Born Sept. 16, 1852, in La Coruña; died May 12, 1921, in Madrid. Spanish author.

The daughter of an aristocrat, Pardo Bazán became a professor at the University of Madrid in 1916. Her first novel was Pascual López (1879). In The Critical Issue (1882–83), she discussed her theories on the aesthetics of naturalism. Social and moral problems were at the heart of her novels The Woman Tribune (1883; Russian translation, The Daughter of the People, 1893) and The Son of a Bondwoman (1886). Her novels A Christian Woman (1890) and The Trial (1900) reveal the influence of Tolstoy. Later she turned to mysticism, as can be seen in the novel The Chimera (1905). Her book Russia: Its People and Its Literature (vols. 1–3, 1887) was one of the first attempts to acquaint the Spanish reader with 19th-century Russian literature.