Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932) was one of Madrid's best-known authors during the first third of the century, when the capital was experiencing the accelerated changes associated with the processes of modernity. A prolific writer of a wide variety of works (12 novels, 57 short stories, a long list of translations, manuals of behavior for women and a vast number of newspaper articles), Burgos was also an important public figure whose essays and speeches passionately promoted the cause of increasing civil rights for women in Spanish society. To return to her work today is to familiarize one's self with the popular literature, politics and social concerns of almost a century ago.
This edition includes two of Burgos's fictional works from 1931: the full-length novel Quiero vivir mi vida, and the short story Puñal de claveles. Both were published the year before the autor's death, during the most politically radical period of her life. Burgos dedicates the novel to Gregorio Marañón, calling it an homage to the great doctor Marañón, who in the most competent and noble of ways, has illuminated the study of intersexuality with his piety and science. Likewise, in the prologue to the novel (included here in this edition), Marañón praises Burgos for her clear understanding of his theories and the incorporation of his concept of intersexuality into the development of the characters.
The murder known as the crime of Nijar (Almería, 1928) is the basis for the plot of Burgos's Puñal de claveles as well as for Lorca's better-known play Bodas de sangre (1932). What in the poet Lorca's hands was a poetic tragedy, for Burgos -the feminist- became a story about the need for women to have the opportunity to escape traditional gender roles. Unlike that of Bodas de sangre, Puñal de claveles's happy ending is directed towards a mass (and largely female) audience.
This critical edition by Susan Larson includes Marañón's essay Sobre el sentido de los celos an introduction which includes a comparison of Puñal de claveles to Lorca's Bodas de sangre as well as notes to help the reader understand Burgos's work in social and cultural context.
