Carmen Laforet (1921–2004) was awarded the first Premio
Nadal, for Nada, in 1944. She wrote a short-story collection
and five other novels, including La mujer nueva (The New
Woman), which won Spain’s National Prize for Literature in
1955.
Edith Grossman is the distinguished recipient of two
Translation of the Year awards from the American Literary
Translators Association and the 2006 PEN Ralph Manheim Medal for
Translation.
“That this complex, mature and wise novel was written by someone in
her early 20s is extraordinary. . . . But after six decades, this
first novel has lost none of its power and originality, and we are
fortunate to have it in this fine translation.”—The Washington
Post, chosen as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year
“Laforet vividly conveys the strangeness of Barcelona in the 1940s,
a city that has survived civil war only to find itself muted by
Franco’s dictatorship. . . . The spirit of sly resistance that
Laforet’s novel expresses, its heroine’s determination to escape
provincial poverty and to immerse herself in ‘lights, noises, the
entire tide of life,’ has lost none of its power of
persuasion.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A brilliantly subtle book whose power lies in what goes unsaid . .
. Nada is a skillfully written, multifaceted novel, and its
eerie relevance to today’s political climate and social attitudes
is difficult to ignore.”—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Nada does indeeed recall Sartre and Camus, but it is fresher and
more vibrant than either, and with its call to intuition and
feelings rather than intellect, it cuts deeper. . . . [A]
mesmerizing new translation . . . a beautiful evocation of the
tidal wave of late adolescent feeling . . . [Laforet] wrote Nada
when she was only 23, yet the book resonates with frightening
maturity, sadness and depth. . . . A work of genius.”—Los Angeles
Times
“[Nada] has been given new life by acclaimed translator Grossman. .
. . Andrea’s narration is gorgeously expressive, rippling with
emotion and meaning . . . fans of European lit will welcome this
Spanish Gothic to the States with open arms and a half-exasperated,
“What took you so long?”—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“Nada is neither moralist, nor prolix, unlike most other Spanish
literature of the time and before. This is a modern voice,
philosophically and stylistically, talking to us in freedom from
the darkest hours of the victory of fascism . . . remarkably
sophisticated.”—The Independent
“Edith Grossman’s translation makes the rich, dense descriptions .
. . sound perfectly natural in English; not a beat is missed, not
an adjective misplaced. Let us hope that her fine, readable version
will enable Nada to achieve, in the English-reading
world, the perennial popularity of a great twentieth-century
novel.”—TLS
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