Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000): Conversing Across the Genres in Poetry, Short Stories, and Theatrical Works is a co-edited volume of essays that brings together major Martín Gaite scholars to examine the canonical author’s works in lesser-studied genres. Literary giant of 20th-century Spain, Carmen Martín Gaite’s expansive corpus, especially her novels, has elicited many significant critical examinations since the 1950s and 1960s, and in particular since the publication of her blockbuster 1978 novel, El cuarto de atrás (The Back Room). Such important critics as Maria Vittoria Calvi and José Teruel have completed critical editions of Martín Gaite’s literary works, including Teruel’s edition of the complete works of Martín Gaite in seven volumes. Few articles and books, however, have treated the author’s poetry, short stories, and dramatic works—all celebrated for their deft use of language and their ability to draw in everyday readers and critics alike. 2025 marked the centennial year of Martín Gaite’s birth, and this volume celebrates this auspicious anniversary and joins in the broad conversations taking place in 21st-century Martín Gaite studies.
Table of Contents:
Note on the Contributors
List of Figures
Introduction: Carmen Martín Gaite’s Conversations Across Genres
Ellen Mayock and Debra J. Ochoa
Carmen Martín Gaite’s Combinations of Literary Genres: Towards an Open Narration * José Teruel*
Double Epiphany in “Un día de libertad” (1953): Between Freedom and Commitment
Nuria Cruz-Cámara
Weaving Threads: A Rereading of Carmen Martín Gaite’s Short Stories
Ester Bautista and Ignacio Rodríguez Sánchez
“Usted quiere verse guapa, ¿verdad?”: Advertising Discourse versus Literary Discourse. Metaliterary Reading of Carmen Martín Gaite’s Short Story “Tarde de tedio”
Chiara Licci
The Voice of the Self and Metaliterature in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Short Story “Flores malva”
Maria Vittoria Calvi
Iconicity and Implicit Self-Referentiality in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Poem “Desembocadura” (1947)
Itzíar López Guil
Feminist Moves and Memories in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Poetry Collection, A rachas
Ellen Mayock
Reading Backwards and Forwards: Carmen Martín Gaite as Translator of Patriarchal Attitudes by Eva Figes
Gareth Wood
The Journey Toward the Non-Place from Carmen Martín Gaite’s “Callejón de salida” and Entre visillos (1958) to La hermana pequeña (1959)
Debra J. Ochoa
Two Television Scripts by Carmen Martín Gaite: Teresa de Jesús and Celia as “Chicas Raras,” “Willful Women,” and “Killjoys”
Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar
“No me pidáis que vuelva.” Second-Person Plural in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Poetry: A Narrative Hypothesis
Belén Gopegui
Carmiña (Original Play in Spanish, with English Translation by Debra J. Ochoa and Ellen Mayock)
Noelia Adánez
About the Author :
Ellen Mayock is the Ernest Williams II Professor of Spanish at Washington and Lee University, where she teaches courses in Spanish, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia honored Mayock with an Outstanding Faculty Award in 2010. In 2019, Georgetown University Press published Mayock’s co-authored (with Mary Ann Dellinger and Beatriz Trigo) textbook, Indagaciones. Introducción a los Estudios Culturales hispanos. Author of The ‘Strange Girl’ in Twentieth-Century Spanish Novels Written by Women (2004) and Gender Shrapnel in the Academic Workplace (2016), Mayock focuses her research on workplace fairness, Title IX, gender-based violence, and historical memory. She is co-editor of three volumes of essays. Mayock also writes poetry and creative non-fiction in English and Spanish. She is currently working on a memoir titled Small Town Feminist and on several translation projects. Debra Ochoa is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Trinity University (San Antonio, TX). She has published various articles on contemporary Spanish cultural production in journals such as Letras Femeninas, Letras Hispanas, Confluencia, and the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. Additionally, she has also published in the anthologies Beyond the Backroom: New Perspectives on Carmen Martín Gaite (2011) and European Film and Television: Crisis Narratives and Narratives of Crisis (2018). In 2018, she co-edited the volume "Gender in Spanish Urban Spaces: Literary and Visual Narratives of the New Millennium." Currently, she is writing a manuscript that examines contemporary films through a transatlantic lens, titled Visions of Nueva York in Contemporary Iberian Films. Her publications on Carmen Martín Gaite include analyses of Visión de Nueva York and Caperucita en Manhattan. Additionally, she has used Martín Gaite’s writing about the chica rara and the novela rosa as a critical lens in publications about Concha Alós and Lucía Etxebarría.
