Novel
Jardín
Not translated into English
Dulce María Loynaz · 1951
Synopsis
Bárbara, a young woman, lives in an old house surrounded by a large neglected garden; her mother has withdrawn behind a door after the death of a little brother, and her father is almost absent. There she discovers photographs of her childhood and the letters that the lover of a forebear, named Bárbara like her, wrote in the nineteenth century, with no reply surviving. The narrative advances in five parts, outside any chronology.
Context
Begun in 1928 and completed in 1935, the book was published in Madrid by Aguilar in 1951, with a prelude by the author, who calls it a lyrical novel. In 1993 Verity Smith offers a feminist reading of it and notes how rare criticism of it is, despite the esteem of Cintio Vitier. Seix Barral reissued it in 1993, preceded by a text by Juan Ramón Jiménez. The BnF knows of only La Fille prodigue in French, a different book, translated by Claude Couffon.
Who it is for
A lyrical novel, without a sustained plot, to be read as a long prose poem; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
No prize for the novel; Verity Smith expected the Cervantes Prize awarded to its author to bring renewed critical interest.