Laforet, Carmen

Laforet, Carmen (Carmen Laforet Díaz) (kär`mān läfōrĕt`), 1921–2004, Spanish writer, b. Barcelona. Her first novel, Nada (1945, tr. Andrea 1964), which describes the spiritual desolation of a country emerging from civil war, parallels some of her own experiences. Her other works, noted for their sensitivity and accuracy of observation, include La isla y los demonios [the island and the devils] (1952), La mujer nueva [the new woman] (1955), Grand Canary (tr. 1961), and La niña y otros relatos [the little girl and other stories] (1970).

Bibliography

See study by R. Johnson (1981).

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Laforet, Carmen 

Born Sept. 6, 1921, in Barcelona. Spanish writer.

Laforet studied philosophy, literature, and law at the universities of Barcelona and Madrid. Her first novel, Nothing (1944), depicted the disunity and spiritual crisis of the Spanish intelligentsia. Her work and the novels of C. J. Cela gave birth to the literature of tremendismo (from the Spanish tremendo, “terrible”). Laforet continued her first novel’s theme in Island and Demons (1952), which is based on recollections of her childhood in the Canary Islands. The novellas in the collection The Call (1954) and the novel The New Woman (1955) preach moral self-perfection in the spirit of militant Catholicism. Sunstroke (1963) is the first part of a novel trilogy about the formation of the personality of a young artist.

WORKS

Obras completas. Barcelona, 1957.
Mis páginas mejores. [Madrid, 1956.]
In Russian translation:
[Novelly.] In Ispanskaia novella XX v. Moscow [1965].
Nichto. Ostrov i demony. Introduction by I. Terterian. Moscow, 1969.

REFERENCES

Terterian, I. Sovremennyi ispanskii roman. Moscow, 1972.
Illanes, A. G. La novelística de Carmen Laforet. [Madrid, 1971.]