Introduction

Carmen Martín Gaite's last novels reaffirm the concerns which preoccupied her over half a century of repression and transformation in Spain, and reaffirm her canonical status as one of the country's best-known and most widely read women authors. There is a notable vivacity in the protagonists which she chooses in her final works, a liveliness to their speech and linguistic register, which may attract readers of younger generations. Indeed, Martín Gaite’s universal appeal even towards the end of her writing career was borne out by the long queues of youthful Spaniards who patiently waited for autographs and book dedications at her stall at Madrid's book fair each year until her death in 2000. The critic Robert Saladrigas has paid tribute to Martín Gaite’s talent as a writer, declaring ‘escribe el más personal, rico y dúctil castellano en clave feminina’ (she writes the richest, most personal and maleable Castilian of any female author). In this and the next chapter we examine Martín Gaite's last two finished novels, both of which demonstrate her ongoing interest in women's lives and familial relations.

Lo raro es vivir, first published in 1996, recounts a time of trial and personal upheaval for 35-year-old professional archivist, Águeda Soler who was, in her student days, a rock singer-songwriter. Águeda's somewhat existentialist search through her personal family history is prompted by the presence of death in her immediate family circle – her mother is recently deceased and her grandfather, a stroke victim, is nearing the end of his life. Raro concludes with Águeda's emotional reconciliation with her dying grandfather and, in echo of Nubosidad, her retrospective mental reconciliation with her lost mother. The novel's epilogue narrates the birth of her daughter Cecilia, thus offering a positive vision of maternity. Memory and history are yet again woven together by Martín Gaite, this time in an optimistic narrative which takes as a point of departure a relatively new image in the author's fictional works, if one familiar in her discursive writing, that of the archive as both a public and a private repository of the past.

Prevailing critical views

At the end of her writing career, Martín Gaite continued to explore themes which had preoccupied her since the time of ‘El balneario’.