A Woman Unknown
Voices from a Spanish Life
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Lucia Graves, daughter of the poet Robert Graves and his wife Beryl, grew up in the beautiful village of Deia on the island of Majorca. Neither Spanish nor Catholic by birth, she nevertheless absorbed the different traditions of Spain and felt the full impact of Franco's dictatorship through the experience of her education. Lucia found herself continually bridging the gaps between Catalan, Spanish and English, as she picked up the patterns and nuances that contain the essence of each culture.
Portraying her life as a child watching the hills lit up by bonfires on Good Friday, or, years later, walking through the haunting backstreets of the Jewish quarter of Girona, this is a captivating personal memoir which provides a first-hand account of Catalonia, where Lucia lived and raised a family. It is also a unique and perceptive appraisal of a country burdened by tradition yet coming to terms with political change as the decades moved on.
Portraying her life as a child watching the hills lit up by bonfires on Good Friday, or, years later, walking through the haunting backstreets of the Jewish quarter of Girona, this is a captivating personal memoir which provides a first-hand account of Catalonia, where Lucia lived and raised a family. It is also a unique and perceptive appraisal of a country burdened by tradition yet coming to terms with political change as the decades moved on.
- Published: Apr 06 2000
- Pages: 288
- 204 x 126mm
- ISBN: 9781860495533
Press Reviews
- MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
Beautifully evokes the idyll of her Majorcan childhood ... a beguiling book
- IRELAND EXAMINER
a veritable gem ... in every sense of the word a memorable, beautifully written book
- TLS
Although many English writers have opened windows on Spain ... none have done it so intimately and so personally as Lucia Graves. This is a book of high literary distinction and extraordinary humanity. One eagerly awaits a sequel
- FINANCIAL TIMES
A highly revealing account, not only of a woman's life, but of a whole extraordinary passage in one contemporary European country ... it should be read by everybody interested in Spain and in women's special history in the present century