{"product_id":"nada-isbn-9780812975833","title":"Nada","description":"\u003cb\u003eRenowned as Spain’s \u003ci\u003eThe Catcher in the Rye,\u003c\/i\u003e a passionate coming-of-age novel that follows a rebellious young woman as she uncovers her family’s secrets in chaotic, polarized post–Civil War Barcelona\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“A work of genius [that recalls] Sartre and Camus, but it is fresher and more vibrant than either.”—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAndrea, an eighteen-year-old orphan, moves from her small town to Barcelona to attend university. Living in genteel squalor with her volatile relatives in a mysterious house on Calle de Aribau, Andrea relies on her wealthy, beautiful bohemian friend Ena to prove that normal life exists beyond the gothic dwelling she calls home. In one year, as her innocence melts away, Andrea learns the truth about her overbearing and religious aunt Angustias, her cruelly sensual, musically gifted uncle Román and his violent brother Juan, and her lovely aunt Gloria, who supports the family with furtive gambling expeditions. She also learns the truth about Ena—and why her friendship goes hand in hand with her interest in Andrea’s family.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePeppered with dark humor, energy, and hope, Carmen Laforet’s stunning autobiographical classic is the story of a young woman who endures the harsh realities of her postwar society, emerging wiser and stronger, and with a bright future ahead of her.“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.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Washington Post, chosen as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A brilliantly subtle book whose power lies in what goes unsaid . . . \u003ci\u003eNada\u003c\/i\u003e is a skillfully written, multifaceted novel, and its eerie relevance to today’s political climate and social attitudes is difficult to ignore.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe San Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[\u003ci\u003eNada\u003c\/i\u003e] 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?”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher’s Weekly (starred review) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNada\u003c\/i\u003e 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.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“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 \u003ci\u003eNada\u003c\/i\u003e to achieve, in the English-reading world, the perennial popularity of a great twentieth-century novel.”\u003cb\u003e—TLS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eCarmen Laforet (1921–2004)\u003c\/b\u003e was awarded the first Premio Nadal, for \u003ci\u003eNada\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1944. She wrote a short-story collection and five other novels, including \u003ci\u003eLa mujer nueva \u003c\/i\u003e(The New Woman), which won Spain’s National Prize for Literature in 1955.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdith Grossman\u003c\/b\u003e 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.I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Because of last-minute difficulties in buying tickets, I arrived in Barcelona  at midnight on a train different from the one I had announced, and nobody was waiting  for me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was the first time I had traveled alone, but I wasn’t frightened; on  the contrary, this profound freedom at night seemed like an agreeable and exciting  adventure to me. Blood was beginning to circulate in my stiff legs after the long,  tedious trip, and with an astonished smile I looked around at the huge Francia Station  and the groups forming of those who were waiting for the express and those of us  who had arrived three hours late.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The special smell, the loud noise of the crowd,  the invariably sad lights, held great charm for me, since all my impressions were  enveloped in the wonder of having come, at last, to a big city, adored in my daydreams  because it was unknown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I began to follow—a drop in the current—the human mass that,  loaded down with suitcases, was hurrying toward the exit. My luggage consisted of  a large bag, extremely heavy because it was packed full of books, which I carried  myself with all the strength of my youth and eager anticipation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An ocean breeze,  heavy and cool, entered my lungs along with my first confused impression of the city:  a mass of sleeping houses, of closed establishments, of streetlights like drunken  sentinels of solitude. Heavy, labored breathing came with the whispering of dawn.  Close by, behind me, facing the mysterious narrow streets that led to the Borne,  above my excited heart, was the ocean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I must have seemed a strange figure with  my smiling face and my old coat blown by the wind and whipping around my legs as  I guarded my suitcase, distrustful of the obsequious “porters.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I remember that  in a very few minutes I was alone on the broad sidewalk because people ran to catch  one of the few taxis or struggled to crowd onto the streetcar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One of those old  horse-drawn carriages that have reappeared since the war stopped in front of me,  and I took it without thinking twice, arousing the envy of a desperate man who raced  after it, waving his hat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That night I rode in the dilapidated vehicle along wide  deserted streets and crossed the heart of the city, full of light at all hours, just  as I wanted it to be, on a trip that to me seemed short and charged with beauty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The carriage circled the university plaza, and I remember that the beautiful building  moved me as if it were a solemn gesture of welcome.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We rode down Calle de Aribau,  where my relatives lived, its plane trees full of dense green that October, and its  silence vivid with the respiration of a thousand souls behind darkened balconies.  The carriage wheels raised a wake of noise that reverberated in my brain. Suddenly  I felt the entire contraption creaking and swaying. Then it was motionless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Here  it is,” said the driver.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I looked up at the house where we had stopped. Rows of  identical balconies with their dark wrought iron, keeping the secrets of the apartments.  I looked at them and couldn’t guess which ones I’d be looking out of from now on.  With a somewhat tremulous hand I gave a few coins to the watchman, and when he closed  the building door behind me, with a great rattling of wrought iron and glass, I began  to climb the stairs very slowly, carrying my suitcase.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Everything felt unfamiliar  in my imagination; the narrow, worn mosaic steps, lit by an electric light, found  no place in my memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In front of the apartment door I was overcome by a sudden  fear of waking those people, my relatives, who were, after all, like strangers to  me, and I hesitated for a while before I gave the bell a timid ring that no one responded  to. My heart began to beat faster, and I rang the bell again. I heard a quavering  voice:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Coming! Coming!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shuffling feet and clumsy hands sliding bolts open.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then  it all seemed like a nightmare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In front of me was a foyer illuminated by the single  weak lightbulb in one of the arms of the magnificent lamp, dirty with cobwebs, that  hung from the ceiling. A dark background of articles of furniture piled one on top  of the other as if the household were in the middle of moving. And in the foreground  the black-white blotch of a decrepit little old woman in a nightgown, a shawl thrown  around her shoulders. I wanted to believe I’d come to the wrong apartment, but the  good-natured old woman wore a smile of such sweet kindness that I was certain she  was my grandmother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Is that you, Gloria?” she said in a whisper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I shook my head,  incapable of speaking, but she couldn’t see me in the gloom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Come in, come in,  my child. What are you doing there? My God! I hope Angustias doesn’t find out you’ ve come home at this hour!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Intrigued, I dragged in my suitcase and closed the door  behind me. Then the poor old woman began to stammer something, disconcerted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Don’ t you know me, Grandmother? I’m Andrea.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Andrea?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She hesitated. She was making  an effort to remember. It was pitiful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Yes, dear, your granddaughter. . . . I couldn’ t get here this morning the way I wrote I would.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The old woman still couldn’t understand  very much, and then through one of the doors to the foyer came a tall, skinny man  in pajamas who took charge of the situation. This was Juan, one of my uncles. His  face was full of hollows, like a skull in the light of the single bulb in the lamp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As soon as he patted me on the shoulder and called me niece, my grandmother threw  her arms around my neck, her light-colored eyes full of tears, and saying “poor thing”  over and over again. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was something agonizing in the entire scene, and  in the apartment the heat was suffocating, as if the air were stagnant and rotting.  When I looked up I saw that several ghostly women had appeared. I almost felt my  skin crawl when I caught a glimpse of one of them in a black dress that had the look  of a nightgown. Everything about that woman seemed awful, wretched, even the greenish  teeth she showed when she smiled at me. A dog followed her, yawning noisily, and  the animal was also black, like an extension of her mourning. They told me she was  the maid, and no other creature has ever made a more disagreeable impression on me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Behind Uncle Juan appeared another woman who was thin and young, her disheveled  red hair falling over her sharp white face and over the languor that clung to the  sheets, which increased the painful impression made by the group.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was still standing,  feeling my grandmother’s head on my shoulder, held by her embrace, and all those  figures seemed equally elongated and somber. Elongated, quiet, and sad, like the  lights at a village wake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “All right, that’s enough, Mamá, that’s enough,” said  a dry, resentful-sounding voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then I realized there was yet another woman behind  me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and another lifting my chin. I’m tall, but my Aunt  Angustias was taller, and she obliged me to look at her like that. Her expression  revealed a certain contempt. She had graying hair that fell to her shoulders and  a certain beauty in her dark, narrow face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You really kept me waiting this morning,  my girl! . . . How could I imagine that you’d arrive in the middle of the night?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She’d let go of my chin and stood in front of me with all the height of her white  nightgown and blue robe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Lord, Lord, how upsetting! A child like this, alone .  . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I heard Juan grumble. “Now Angustias is ruining everything, the witch!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Angustias  appeared not to hear him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “All right, you must be tired. Antonia”—and she turned  to the woman enveloped in black—“you have to prepare a bed for the señorita.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I  was tired, and besides, at that moment I felt horribly dirty. Those people moving  around or looking at me in an atmosphere darkened by an accumulation of things crowded  together seemed to have burdened me with all the trip’s heat and soot that I’d forgotten  about earlier. And I desperately wanted a breath of fresh air.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I observed that the  disheveled woman, stupefied by sleep, smiled as she looked at me and also looked  at my suitcase with the same smile. She obliged me to look in that direction, and  my traveling companion seemed somewhat touching in its small-town helplessness. Drab  and tied with rope, it sat beside me, at the center of that strange meeting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Juan  approached me:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Andrea, don’t you know my wife?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And he pushed at the shoulders  of the woman with uncombed hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “My name’s Gloria,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I saw that my grandmother  was looking at us with a worried smile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Bah, bah! . . . What do you mean by shaking  hands? You have to embrace, girls . . . that’s right, that’s right!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Gloria whispered  in my ear:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Are you scared?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And then I almost was, because I saw Juan making nervous  faces, biting the inside of his cheeks. He was trying to smile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Aunt Angustias came  back, full of authority.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Let’s go! Everybody get to sleep—it’s late.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I wanted  to wash up a little,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “What? Talk louder! Wash up?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Her eyes opened wide  with astonishment. Angustias’s eyes and everybody else’s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “There’s no hot water  here,” Angustias said finally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “It doesn’t matter. . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You’d dare to take a  shower this late?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Yes,” I said. “Yes.”Translated by Edith Grossman","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304314491109,"sku":"NP9780812975833","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812975833.jpg?v=1767733430","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/nada-isbn-9780812975833","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}