by Emilia Pardo Bazan

Born in La Coruna in northwest Spain in 1852, the countess Emilia Pardo Bazan is one of the main exponents of the nineteenth- century Spanish narrative. Her father’s political activism gave Pardo Bazan the opportunity to acquire firsthand knowledge of the Spanish political arena from a very young age. In 1869 Jose Pardo Bazan was elected representative to the parliament, and the family moved to Madrid in central Spain, spending winters in the capital and summers in their home province. The grown Emilia Pardo Bazan led an unconventional private life for her era. At 16, she married Jose Quiroga Perez Pinal, a young aristocrat. The couple had three children, but the marriage proved unhappy and Pardo Bazan took several lovers. The publication of her letters to another renowned Spanish writer, Perez Galdos (see Fortunata and Jacinta, also in WLAIT 5: Spanish...