Spanish Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book

Combining assiduous attention to biography and bibliography with original literary criticism oriented toward feminist theory, this volume profiles and analyzes fifty significant women writers of Spain--some celebrated and some overlooked--from the fourteenth century to the present. The work includes poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and essayists. Lives and works are examined with reference to complex issues surrounding gender, creativity, and social mores. Partly informed by findings of the fifty contributing scholars, Levine and Marson have also provided a volume introduction interpreting "herstory" in terms of Spanish culture, likening the struggle for identity and artistic expression in an engendered world to balancing on a tightrope. Extensive bibliographies for each writer document original works, modern editions and translations, and criticism; and a general bibliography selects valuable sources pertaining to Spanish women writers and gender-related topics.

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"...The well-written essays represent a variety of viewpoints, and the work clearly fills a bibliographic gap in Spanish literature for both newer writers and established authors revisited. It deserves a place in all such collections, especially for English-reading audiences." RQ

LINDA GOULD LEVINE is Professor of Spanish at Montclair State College, New Jersey, where she also teaches Women's Studies.ELLEN ENGELSON MARSON is Associate Professor of Spanish at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.GLORIA FEIMAN WALDMAN is Chair of the Foreign Languages Department and Professor of Spanish at York College, CUNY, where she also teaches Women's Studies and Latin American Studies.

The editors have compiled 50 essays written by established Hispanists on six centuries of women writers in Spain. The format of each entry is fixed (biography, major themes, survey of criticism, and bibliography of works by and about each writer), with the length averaging several pages. Well-known authors (e.g., Carmen Laforet, Emilia Pardo Bazan, Teresa de Jesus) appear with the lesser-known (e.g., Maria de Zayas, Concepcion Gimeno, Merce Rodoreda), and Catalonia is well represented. The introduction to the work is essential to understanding the feminist critical approach that informs the essays, making the important point that subterfuge and camouflage were devices necessarily and commonly employed by women writers in order to succeed in creating and publishing in the dominant male culture. Similar to the more encyclopedic Women Writers of Spain: An Annotated Bio-Bibliographical Guide (Greenwood, 1986), this quality work is recommended primarily for graduate and research collections.-Charles E. Perry, East Central Univ., Ada, Okla. Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information.