Courtship Customs in Postwar Spain/Usos Amorosos De LA Postguerra Espanola (English and Spanish Edition)

Carmen Martin Gaite has a sizeable corpus of creative literature which, for the most part, combines personal or fictional experience with a realistic view of life in contemporary Spain. Her prize-wining essay Usos amorosos de la postguerra espanola [Courtship Customs in Postwar Spain] (1987) is a companion piece to her fictional work and offers a key that explains the attitudes of the protagonists as well as those of her generation. Its dedication clearly shows that this is not a piece of dry research: "For all Spanish women between 50 and 60, who don't understand their children. And for their children, who don't understand them." She obviously hit the right chord: the book was so popular that it sold seven editions in less than six months and was named "Libro de Oro" [Gold Book] by the Spanish Booksellers Guild.