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by Manuel Vicent (Author)
LA NOVELA DE CONCHA PIQUER
UN MITO QUE DEFINIÓ TODA UNA ÉPOCA DE LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA. UNA MUJER QUE ROMPIÓ TODOS LOS MOLDES. POR EL RETRATISTA MÁS AGUDO Y BRILLANTE DE LA LITERATURA ESPAÑOLA ACTUAL.
«Es capaz de captar los detalles mínimos de personajes y objetos, y de analizar, con cuidado y sutileza, los sentimientos de las criaturas que asoman a sus textos . --Ascensión Rivas, El Cultural
A MYTH THAT DEFINED AN ENTIRE ERA IN THE HISTORY OF SPAIN. A WOMAN WHO BROKE ALL MOLDS. BY THE KEENEST, MOST BRILLIANT PORTRAIT ARTIST IN SPANISH LITERATURE TODAY.
"He is capable of capturing the slightest details in characters and objects, of carefully and subtly analyzing the feelings of all creatures that peek through his texts." --Ascensión Rivas, El Cultural
One winter's day in the nineteen twenties, a young woman walks hastily down the snow-covered streets of New York. She has a prescription inside her purse that will permit her to buy a bottle of wine at the drugstore to celebrate Christmas Eve with some friends. Prohibition is in full swing. The young woman is Concha Piquer. She is barely eighteen and has already been a hit on the Broadway stage for four years, has gotten involved in a murder case, and has come in contact with the mafia. She arrived with almost no experience, ignorant of the world beyond the farm and the occasional theater in her hometown, speaking nothing but Valencian. Before returning to Spain and becoming the symbol of an entire age, she also dazzled Mexico and Cuba. The country girl returns engulfed in glamour and money, with several lovers behind her and a secret son. From then on, her life crosses paths with that of writers Blasco Ibáñez and García Lorca, matadors such as Antonio Márquez, politicians, boxers, actors... Far from the couplet singer's stereotype, Concha Piquer was much more than that. Or to be exact, she was everything but. The story of this "modern woman" also depicts an era in Spanish history: Postwar and Francoism. And Manuel Vicent recreates it with a masterful blend of reality and fiction, as well as a kind of ingenuity, fineness, and irony unparalleled in Spanish literature.
Author Biography
Manuel Vicent nacido en Vilavella (Castellón) y Premio Lletraferit de Cultura Valenciana 2021, ha publicado en Alfaguara novelas como Tranvía a la Malvarrosa (1994 y 2014), Jardín de Villa Valeria (1996) --ambas recogidas junto con Contra Paraíso en el volumen Otros días, otros juegos (2002)--, Pascua y naranjas (1993), Son de Mar (Premio Alfaguara 1999), La novia de Matisse (2000), Cuerpos sucesivos (2003), Verás el cielo abierto (2005), León de ojos verdes (2008), Aguirre, el magnífico (2011), El azar de la mujer rubia (2013), Desfile de ciervos (2015), La regata (2017) y Ava en la noche (2020). También es autor de la antología Los mejores relatos (1997) y de las colecciones de artículos Nadie muere la víspera (2004), Las horas paganas (1998), Viajes, fábulas y otras travesías (2006), Póquer de ases (2009), Mitologías (2012), Los últimos mohicanos (2016), Antitauromaquia (2017), con ilustraciones de El Roto, y Lecturas con daiquiri (2019).
