Spring 2021: Story of a Stairway, by Antonio Buero Vallejo
In Spring 2021, the Online Reading Club from the Instituto Cervantes in Leeds will be devoted to Story of a Stairway by Antonio Buero Vallejo (Guadalajara, 1916 - Madrid, 2000), one of the greatest Spanish playwrights of the 20th century. In 1986, he was awarded the Cervantes Prize in recognition of his complete work. Story of a Stairway was his first drama, premiered in 1949 and winner of the Lope de Vega Prize.
Of Story of a Stairway has been said on multiple occasions that it is a faithful portrait and an acute analysis of the Spanish society in the decades between 1920 and 1940. It narrates the adventures and misadventures of a group of neighbours who gather around a same community over 30 years. Concerned only with pursuing their dreams and consummating their amorous outbursts, the neighbours behave in a selfish way. Unable to sympathize with each other, the misery perpetuates and they plunge into unhappiness.
The objective of the Reading Club, apart from improving the reading comprehension and speaking in Spanish, is to introduce to the participants to the life and work of Antonio Buero Vallejo and gain a deep understanding of the play Story of a Stairway.
The tutor of the Reading Club, Álvaro González-Montero, has a degree in Translation and Language studies (English, French and Arabic) from the University of Malaga and teaches Spanish at a secondary school in Leeds.
He is working on a Master's research project at the University of Leeds. In it he analyzes the construction of identity, especially homosexuality, colonialism and disease, in the diaries of Jaime Gil de Biedma, under the supervision of leading academics Richard Cleminson and Duncan Wheeler. His research interests include the Spanish Generation of 1950, the theory of the diaries, colonialism and the development of identity in literature.
