Conversation with translators: Hidden Path
Set in early twentieth-century Spain, Hidden Path is a lyrical coming-of-age novel told from the perspective of a woman painter who struggles to find her way with art and with the women she loved. The novel is narrated in the first-person, following María Luisa as she reflects on her life from the turn of the twentieth century through the outset of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939). She recalls growing from an imaginative tomboy into a docile wife and mother before claiming her independence as a portrait painter in Madrid's bohemian and queer circles. Along the way, she introduces us to a lively cast of characters who both hinder and encourage her efforts to blaze her own path. The poetic and sensuous language of María Luisa's private reveries comingles with agile dialogue as the protagonist leads us through her life. Best known in Spain as a writer of children's literature, Elena Fortún left this manuscript unpublished at the time of her death in 1952, as its semi-autobiographical content risked provoking homophobic backlash under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
The first Spanish edition appeared in 2016 and was hailed as Fortún's adult masterpiece, a previously unknown complement to her children's saga Celia and Her World. This edition, with Jeffrey Zamostny's sensitive and nuanced translation, marks the novel's first time appearing in any language aside from Spanish; it is also the first of Fortún's works to appear in English. With an insightful foreword by scholar Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles, this volume will be an influential contribution to women's studies, LGBT histories, and Spanish literature and culture. Elena Fortún (Encarnación Aragoneses Urquijo, Madrid, 1886-1952) is the author of the twenty-volume saga Celia and Her World (1929-1951), and her work created a link between pre- and post-Civil War generations of Spanish women writers.
Jeffrey Zamostny is Associate Professor of Spanish and Spanish Section Coordinator at the University of West Georgia. He holds a doctorate in Hispanic Studies and a graduate certificate in Social Theory from the University of Kentucky, as well as a bachelor's in Spanish from McDaniel College. His research focuses on questions of fandom, celebrity, gender, and sexuality in Silver Age Spain (1898-1936). He has written on novelists such as Alvaro Retana, Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and Alfonso Hernández-Catá; the playwright Jacinto Benavente; the dancer Carmen Tórtola Valencia; and the painter Federico Beltrán-Massés. He co-edited the volume Kiosk Literature of Silver Age Spain (Intellect, 2017) with Susan Larson. Zamostny serves on the editorial boards of Mediodía: Revista Hispánica de Rescate (Editorial Renacimiento) and MIFLC Review.
Professor Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles graduated in 1995 with a Licenciatura in Filología from the University of León (Spain). She completed an MSc and a PhD in Hispanic Studies at the University of Edinburgh and spent her postdoctoral research period at Oxford University where she was the holder of the Queen Sofía Junior Research Fellowship (1999-2002). She spent three years working as a permanent lecturer in Hispanic studies at the University of Lancaster before joining the University of Exeter in 2005. She is now Professor of Hispanic Studies and Gender Studies. She is aso Director of Impact for DML. Professor Capdevila-Argüelles has published extensively in the fields of Gender Studies and Hispanism on both sides of the Atlantic. Her first book Challenging Gender and Genre in the Literary Text (UPS 2002) was published in USA. Her books, Autoras inciertas (2008), He de tener libertad (2010) (http://www.laopiniondemalaga.es/cultura-espectaculos/2011/06/08/isabel-oyarzabal-mujer-ejemplar/428424.html) and Artistas y precursoras (2013) have all won awards from the Spanish Ministry of Education (Dirección General del Libro y Bibliotecas)
