Ana María Matute Ausejo (26 July 1925 – 25 June 2014) was an internationally acclaimed Spanish writer and member of the

Real Academia Española The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...

. In 1959, she received the

Premio Nadal Premio Nadal is a Spanish literary prize awarded annually by the publishing house Ediciones Destino, part of Planeta. It has been awarded every year on 6 January since 1944. The Josep Pla Award for Catalan literature is given at the same ceremon ...

for ''Primera memoria''. The third woman to receive the Cervantes Prize for her literary oeuvre, she is considered one of the foremost novelists of the ''posguerra'', the period immediately following the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

."Estoy cansada de repetirlo: tengo 85 años, nací en 1925 y no en 1926 como se emperran en decir"
''

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

'', 16 November 2010.

Biography

Matute was born on 26 July 1925. At the age of four she almost died from a chronic kidney infection, and was taken to live with her grandparents in Mansilla de la Sierra, a small town in the mountains, for a period of recovery. Matute says that she was profoundly influenced by the villagers whom she met during her time there. This influence can be seen in such works as those published in her 1961 collection ''Historias de la Artámila'' (''Stories from Artámila''), all of which deal with the people that Matute met during her recovery. Settings reminiscent of that town are also often used as settings for her other work. Matute was ten years old when the

broke out in 1936, and this internecine conflict is said to have had the greatest impact on Matute's writing. She considered not only "the battles between the two factions, but also the internal aggression within each side". Following the

Nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

victory in 1939, Francisco Franco established a

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the ...

, which lasted thirty-six years until his death in 1975. Since Matute matured as a writer in this ''posguerra'' period under the dictatorship, some of the most recurrent themes in her works are

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened o ...

, alienation, misery, and especially the loss of

innocence Innocence is a lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, or wrongdoing. In a legal context, innocence is to the lack of legal guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. In other contexts, it is a lack of experience. In relatio ...

. Her work was heavily censored under Franco and she was blacklisted from working as a journalist. At least once she was fined because of her writings. She published her first story, ''The Boy Next Door'', when she was only 17 years old. Matute was known for her sympathetic treatment of the lives of children and adolescents, their feelings of betrayal and isolation, and their rites of passage. She often interjected such elements as myth, fairy tale, the supernatural, and fantasy into her works. She was outspoken about subjects such as the benefits of emotional suffering, the constant changing of a human being, and how innocence is never completely lost. Matute was a university professor. She studied at the international school at Hilversum, Netherlands, and traveled to various countries as a lecturer or guest instructor. Her academic work in the United States spanned four decades, beginning as early as 1966 when she spoke at Our Lady of Cincinnati College. She lectured at the Tatem Arts Center of

Hood College , motto_lang = la , mottoeng = With Heart and Mind and Hand , established = , type = Private college , religious_affiliation = United Church of Christ , endowment = $104.5 million (2020) , president = Andrea E. Chapd ...

in Maryland on 28 April 1969. In 1978, she was a visiting professor at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

. She was invited to speak at

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-da ...

in Utah on 12 March 1990, where she gave a lecture on ''Working the Craft of Translation'' in Spanish. She was also a guest lecturer at the universities of Oklahoma, Indiana and Virginia. She was an honorary member of the

Hispanic Society of America The Hispanic Society of America operates a museum and reference library for the study of the arts and cultures of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America, the Spanish East Indies, and Portuguese India. Despite the name, it ...

and a member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. She won the

in 1958 for the first novel of the trilogy, ''Los Mercaderes''. Her other literary prizes included th
Planeta Prize
and the Café Gijón Prize.

Death

On 25 June 2014, Matute died of a heart attack at the age of 88, and was laid to rest in the Cemetery of Montjuïc, Barcelona.

External Resources

Th
Hispanic Division
located at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the '' de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

in Washington, DC, has a special recording of Ana María Matute herself reading from her prose work ''Algunos muchachos.'' Recorded on 5 May 2000, this Spanish author recorded her reading of this work in Spanish at the Library of Congress. The recording of Matute herself is located in the Archive of Hispanic Literature, which can be located online. Contents include from ''Algunos muchachos'': "Prologue" (2:54); "El rey de los zennos - I" (min. 4:13); II (min 14:21); III (min. 28:31).

Bibliography

Matute's bibliography includes:

Novels

* (1948) ''Los Abel'' (finalist for Premio Nadal) * (1949) ''Luciérnagas'' (blocked by censors, republished as ''En esta tierra'' in 1955) (semifinalist for Premio Nadal) * (1953) '' Fiesta al noroeste'' (translated as ''Celebration in the Northwest'') (Premio Café Gijón) * (1954) ''Pequeño teatro'' (Premio Planeta) * (1955) ''En esta tierra'' (republished as ''Luciérnagas'' in 1993, translated as ''Fireflies'') * (1958) ''Los hijos muertos'' (Premio de la Crítica, Premio Nacional de Literatura) *The semiautobiographical trilogy collected as ''Los mercaderes'' (1977): ** (1960) ''Primera memoria'' (translated as ''School of the Sun'' and 'The Island') (Premio Nadal) ** (1964) ''Los soldados lloran de noche'' (translated as ''Soldiers Cry By Night'') ( Fastenrath Award) ** (1969) ''La trampa'' (translated as ''The Trap'') * (1964) ''Algunos muchachos'' *The medieval trilogy: ** (1971) ''La torre vigía'' ** (1996) ''Olvidado Rey Gudú'' (Premio de RNE Ojo Crítico Especial) ** (2000) ''Aranmanoth'' * (2001) ''En el tren'' (contributor) * (2008) ''Paraíso inhabitado'' * (2014) ''Demonios familiares'' (posthumous)

Story collections

* (1953) ''La pequeña vida'' (later republished as ''El tiempo'') * (1957) ''El tiempo'' * (1956) '' Los niños tontos'' * (1961) ''El arrepentido y otras narraciones'' * (1961) ''Historias de la Artámila'' * (1961) ''Tres y un sueño'' * (1961) ''Libro de juegos para los niños de los otros'' * (1963) ''El río'' (columns from weekly magazine '' Destino'') * (1989) ''The Heliotrope Wall and Other Stories'' (translated by Michael Scott Doyle) * (1990) ''La virgen de Antioquía y otros relatos'' * (1991) '' El árbol de oro'' * (1993) ''De ninguna parte'' (Premio del Concurso Antonio Machado de Narraciones Breves) * (1997) ''Casa de juegos prohibidos'' (selected and introduced by Pedro Manuel Víllora) * (1998) ''Los de la tienda; El maestro; La brutalidad del mundo'' * (2000) ''Todos mis cuentos'' * (2002) ''Cuentos de infancia'' (collection of stories written as a child) * (2011) ''Las Artámilas'' * (2014) ''Demonios familiares'' * (2010) ''La puerta de la luna: Cuentos completos''

Novels and stories for children

* (1956) ''El país de la pizarra'' * (1960) ''Paulina, el mundo y las estrellas'' (Ministerio de Cultura libro de interés juvenil) * (1961) ''El saltamontes verde'' * (1961) ''El caballito loco'' * (1965) ''El Polizón Del Ulises'' (Premio Nacional de Literatura Infantil Lazarillo) * (1972) ''El aprendiz'' * (1972) ''Carnavalito'' * (1983) ''Sólo un pie descalzo'' (Premio Nacional de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil) * (1994) ''La oveja negra'' * (1995) ''El verdadero final de la Bella Durmiente'' (Premio Ciudad de Barcelona) * (2003) ''Tolín''

Essays

* (1961) ''A la mitad del camino'' (columns from the newspaper ''Solidaridad Nacional'' and weekly magazine '' Destino'') * (2004) ''Suiza y la migración''

References

External links

*
Official Website promoting Spanish culture in English languageAna Maria Matute recorded at the Library of Congress for the Hispanic Division's audio literary archive on 30 November 1964
{{DEFAULTSORT:Matute, Ana Maria 1925 births 2014 deaths Writers from Barcelona Spanish women novelists Members of the Royal Spanish Academy Premio Cervantes winners 20th-century Spanish novelists 20th-century women writers