Journey to the Alcarria

Journey to the Alcarria
Author: Camilo José Cela
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages: 168
Release: 1990
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9780871133793

Awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature, Camilo José Cela has long been recognized as one of the preeminent Spanish writers of the twentieth century. Journey to the Alcarria is the best known of his vagabundajes, Cela's term for his books of travels, sketchbooks of regions or provinces. The Alcarria is a territory in New Castile, northeast of Madrid, surrounding most of the Guadalajara province. The region is high, rocky, and dry, and is famous for its honey. Cela himself is "the traveler," an urban intellectual wandering from village to village, through farms and along country roads, in search of the Spanish character. Cela relishes his encounters with the simple, honest people of the Spanish countryside--the blushing maid in the tavern, the small-town shopkeeper with airs of grandeur lonely for companionship, the old peasant with his donkey who freely shares his bread and blanket with the stranger. These vignettes are narrated in a fresh, clear prose that is wonderfully evocative. As the New York Times wrote, Cela is "an outspoken observer of human life who built his reputation on portraying what he observed in a direct colloquial style."

Old Spain and New Spain

Old Spain and New Spain
Author: David Henn
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2004
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780838640159

This is the first, book-length study of the six travel narratives published by the 1989 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literatures. Preliminary chapters focus on technical and thematic aspects of travel-writing, and on the author's approach to the genre. Cela's travel works, which appeared between 1948 and 1986, are examined in turn, with a focus on the construction of the narratives and also on the themes that are developed in each of them. There is an assessment of the author's treatment of topographical, cultural, historical, and social material in his accounts of the journeys he made through various areas and regions of Spain, as well as a consideration of the way in which these narratives reflect changes taking place in Spain during the Franco regime and in the decade following the dictator's death. David Henn teaches modern Spanish fiction, drama, and travel literature at University College London.

The Novels and Travels of Camilo José Cela

The Novels and Travels of Camilo José Cela
Author: Robert Kirsner
Publisher: Unc Department of Romance Studies
Total Pages: 198
Release: 1964
Genre: Spain
ISBN:

Published in 1963, this book gave historical context to the works of Camilo Jose Cela (1916-2002) who would go on to be awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1989.

Early Modern Visions of Space

Early Modern Visions of Space
Author: Dorothea Heitsch
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2021-12-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 146966741X

How writers respond to a cosmology in evolution in the sixteenth century and how literature and space implicate each other are the guiding issues of this volume in which sixteen authors explore the topic of space in its multiform incarnations and representations. The volume's first section features the early modern exploration and codification of urban and rural spaces as well as maritime and industrial expanses: "Space and Territory: Geographies in Texts" thus contributes to a history of spatial consciousness. The construction of local, national, political, public, and private places is highlighted in "Space and Politics: Literary Geographies"; the contributors in this segment show how built forms as architectural or literary constructions and spatial orientation are intertwined. "Space and Gender: Geopoetical Approaches" traces the experience of gender as political, territorial, and communicative exploration; the essays in this division deal with social organization and its symbolic analysis, resulting in literary texts featuring what could be called psychological production theories. The development of ethical approaches adapted to or critical of colonial expansion is analyzed in "Space and Ethics: Geocritical Ventures"; here we encounter early modern globalization where locals, explorers, immigrants, adventurers, and intellectuals remake themselves in new places, engage in or meet with resistance, or attempt to rework local sociopolitical systems while reassessing those they are familiar with. "The Space of the Book, the Book as Space: Printing, Reading, Publishing" analyzes the tactile object of the book as an arena for commerce, politics, and authorial experimentation.

Mazurka for Two Dead Men

Mazurka for Two Dead Men
Author: Camilo José Cela
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2019-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0811225658

A New York Times Best Book of the Year Nobel Prize Laureate Mazurka for Two Dead Men, the culmination of Camilo José Cela‘s literary art, opens in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War: Lionheart Gamuzo is savagely murdered. In 1939, as the war ends, his brother avenges his death. For both deaths, the blind accordion player Gaudencio plays the same mazurka. Set in backward rural Galicia, Cela’s excellent novel portrays a reign of fools, and works like contrapuntal music, its themes calling and responding, alternately brutal, melancholy, funny, lyrical, and coarse.

San Camilo, 1936

San Camilo, 1936
Author: Camilo José Cela
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 1991
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780822311966

Widely regarded as one of the best works by the winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature, San Camilo, 1936 appears here for the first time in English translation. One of Spain's most popular writers, Camilo José Cela is recognized for his experiments with language and with difficult subject matter. In San Camilo, 1936, first published in 1969, these concerns converge in a fascinating narrative that is as challenging as it is rewarding, as troubling as it is compelling. A story of history as it happens, by turns confusing and startingly clear, echoing with news and rumors, defined by grand gestures and intimate pauses, the novel leads the reader into the ordinary life of extraordinary times. Beginning on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, San Camilo, 1936 follows a twenty-year-old student's attempts to sort out his private affairs (sex, money, career) in the midst of the turmoil overtaking his country. In vivid and richly textured prose that distinguishes Cela's work, the emotional reality of civil war takes on a vibrant immediacy that is humorous, tender, and ultimately transforming as a young man tries to come to terms with the historical moment he inhabits--and hopes to survive. Readers new to Cela will find in this novel ample reason for the author's growing reputation among audiences worldwide.

An Arabian Journey

An Arabian Journey
Author: Levison Wood
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2019-02-05
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 080214733X

The acclaimed author of Walking the Americas shares his epic journey through the war-torn Arabian Peninsula in this fascinating travelogue. Following in the footsteps of famed explorers such as Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer Levison Wood brings us along on his most complex expedition yet: a circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula. Starting in September 2017 in a city in Northern Syria, a stone’s throw away from Turkey and amidst a deadly war, Wood set forth on a 5,000-mile trek through the most contested region on the planet. Wood moved through the Middle East for six months, from ISIS-occupied Iraq through Kuwait and along the jagged coastlines of the Emirates and Oman; across Yemen—in the midst of civil war—and on to Saudia Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, before ending on the shores of the Mediterranean in Lebanon. Like his predecessors, Wood travelled through some of the harshest and most beautiful environments on earth, seeking to challenge our perceptions of this part of the world. Through the people he meets—and the personal histories and local mythologies they share—Wood examines how the region has changed over thousands of years and what it means to its people today.