Influential Voices: Carmen Laforet and Gabriel Celaya in Spanish Literature

Carmen Laforet: A Literary Life and Legacy

Born in 1921, Carmen Laforet married the journalist and literary critic Manuel Cerezales in Madrid, with whom she had five children.

In 1944, she won the first Nadal Prize with her novel Nada, a first-person narrative delving into the world of young Andrea. This seminal work also received the Fastenrath Prize from the Royal Spanish Academy in 1948 and is considered a key example of the existential realism that dominated European narrative in the 1940s.

Her subsequent publications include La isla y los demonios (1952). La nueva mujer (1955) earned her the National Prize for Literature in 1956 and the Menorca Novel Award in 1955. This was followed by La insolación (1963).

In 1965, she traveled to the United States by invitation, and her experiences there were published in the essay Mi primer viaje a USA (1981). During this trip, she also met the novelist Ramón J. Sender, with whom she maintained an interesting correspondence. Almost all of Laforet’s work revolves around a central theme: the clash between youthful idealism and the mediocrity of the environment.

Carmen Laforet suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and died in Madrid on February 28, 2004.

In February 2007, marking the third anniversary of her death, publisher Menoscuarto released a collection of all her short stories, including five previously unpublished ones, such as Carta a Don Juan.

In 2009, her daughter, Cristina Cerezales, published a second book about her mother, Música blanca (Destino).

Nada: A Landmark Existentialist Novel

Nada, a novel written in 1944, won the Nadal Prize on January 6, 1945, and subsequently, in 1948, the Fastenrath Prize from the Royal Spanish Academy. The work garnered significant attention not only for the youth of the writer, who was 23 at the time, but also for Laforet’s vivid description of the society of the era. Regarding claims that the novel was autobiographical, she herself addressed this in the compilation entitled Novelas (First edition, 1957, Barcelona, Editorial Planeta).

This existentialist novel by Carmen Laforet powerfully reflects the stagnation and poverty of post-war Spain. With this book, written in a literary style that represented a renovation in the prose of the time, the writer was able to convey the slow disappearance of the petty bourgeoisie after the Civil War.

Gabriel Celaya: Poet of Social Commitment

Gabriel Celaya (Rafael Múgica Celaya, 1911-1991) was a Spanish poet of the post-war literary generation. He is recognized as one of the most prominent representatives of what is known as”committed poetry” He received the National Prize for Spanish Literature in 1986.

Celaya settled in Madrid, where he began his engineering studies and worked for a time in the family business. There, he met poets and other intellectuals of the Generation of ’27 who influenced his turn to literature, focusing entirely on poetry thereafter. In 1947, in San Sebastián, he founded the poetry collection”Nort” with his inseparable companion, Amparo Gastón.

He received the 1956 Critics’ Prize for his book Canto a la clara. His extensive bibliography includes, among others, the collections:

  • Plural (1935)
  • Cantos Ibéricos (1955)
  • Casi en prosa (1972)
  • Buenos días, buena noche (1976)
  • Últimos poemas (1982)

Gabriel Celaya passed away in 1991.

Poetry is a Loaded Weapon of the Future: An Absurdist Play

This work, often associated with Celaya’s committed poetry, depicts an absurd scenario: a married couple visits the front lines with the intention of having a picnic day with their son, who is in a trench. There, they encounter a defeated enemy with whom they share the day in a friendly atmosphere. Surprised to discover that neither side truly desires war, they decide to end it. The characters’ naivety is shattered when the reality of war unleashes its full fury, crushing their dreams at the work’s conclusion.