Read this when
La Regenta
When your whole town has an opinion about your inner life. Ana Ozores felt this in 1884.
Who it's for
Clarín spends hundreds of pages inside Ana Ozores's head, tracing how an intense, imaginative, deeply lonely woman is shaped and squeezed by a town that watches everything.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Leopoldo Alas ('Clarín') published this realist novel in two volumes in 1884 and 1885. It is set in Vetusta, a fictional provincial capital modelled on Oviedo, during the Restoration. Ana Ozores, 'La Regenta', is married to Víctor Quintanar, an elderly former magistrate, and feels emotionally neglected.
Where to find it
Original Spanish text is public domain and free online (e.g., Project Gutenberg, Cervantes Virtual). The English translation by John Rutherford (Penguin Classics) is in copyright; in print and via lib.
Before you start
Heads up: Priestly manipulation; a fatal duel.
Age: Ages 16+
You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds, no. 42
