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"The humor in the stories, as well as their thrill of realism, comes from a Nabokovian precision of observation and transformation of plain experience into enchanting prose."--Los Angeles Times Collected here are thirty-one of Mercè Rodoreda's most moving and challenging stories, presented in chronological order of their publication from three of Rodoreda's most beloved short story collections:Twenty-Two Stories,It Seemed Like Silk and Other Stories, andMy Christina and Other Stories. These stories capture Rodoreda's full range of expression, from quiet literary realism to fragmentary impressionism to dark symbolism. Few writers have captured so clearly, or explored so deeply, the lives of women who are stuck somewhere between senseless modernity and suffocating tradition--Rodoreda's "women are notable for their almost pathological lack of volition, but also for their acute sensitivity, a nearly painful awareness of beauty" (Natasha Wimmer). Mercè Rodoreda is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Exiled to France during the Spanish Civil War, and only able to return to Catalonia in the mid-1960s, she wrote a number of highly praised works, includingThe Time of the Doves andDeath in Spring. Martha Tennent was born in the U.S, but has lived most of her life in Barcelona where she served as founding dean of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vic. She translates from Spanish and Catalan, and received an NEA Translation Fellowship for her work on Rodoreda.… (more)
User reviews
Rodoreda is a Catalan writer who died in 1983; these stories come from three collections published in 1958, 1978, and one that (as far as I can tell) was collected after her death. These stories are published in chronological order, and become more experimental toward the end, moving toward a more impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness style. I was less taken with these stories than with the more realistic ones, but it was interesting to see her moving in new directions and experimenting with new styles.
Read the rest of the review at Of Books and Bicycles.