Though her first books date from a decade before Francisco Franco's death, Clara Janés is classed with the post-Franco writers; she was little known before 1975, and most of her work, including her most significant, was published after that year, during the reign of Juan Carlos and the transition to democracy. She is also more akin to post-Franco generations in "liberated" critical spirit.

Janés, the daughter of publisher Josep Janés Olive, was born in Barcelona in 1940, when Spain was still wracked by the enmity, rancor, and violence resulting from the Spanish Civil War and postwar purges. Reconstruction was delayed for many years because of the magnitude of destruction and the ongoing hostilities of World War II, which diverted attention from Spain and rendered foreign assistance unavailable. Barcelona, with its recent history of short-lived Catalan independence, suffered additional repression by the Franco regime. Having...