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With this edition in Spanish El inefable Philip, the novel by Catalan author Aurora Bertrana is published for the first time ever.
In this novel Bertrana tells the story of Anna, a bourgeois woman obsessed with Philip, an extraordinary handsome man son of an English thread manufacturer. Philip’s beauty is such that Anna regards him as a deity, so she manages to marry him despite Philip’s warning that he will never be able to make any woman happy. Anna disregards his own revelation because she is convinced that through her charms, and pleasing Philip in every way, she will be able to change her husband’s mind. However, Anna’s attempts are futile. Philip is attracted to men and there is nothing in the world that would make him give up his freedom and pleasures.
In addition to a failed marriage, through Philip Anna discovers alternative ways of living. However, the modern and bohemian life that Philip and his friends propose to Anna is too remote to her traditional values and beliefs. So, when Philip dies in a hospital after suffering a traffic accident, Anna finally marries her lifelong friend and admirer Agustí Bruguera.
In her novel Bertrana sets her focus to criticize the economic dependence of women, and the lazy and irresponsible life of a bourgeois type like Philip, who lives at the expense of others without working or producing anything.
The novel deals with forbidden topics at that time, such as homosexuality, lesbianism, infidelity and divorce, up to the point that Bettrana faced serious problems when she tried to publish her novel. Publishers were uncomfortable with the idea of publishing a text that exposed such bourgeoisie vices.
The introduction to this translation includes a discussion of these social issues, and offers a critical study of the author and her work –and in particular of El inefable Philip.
This book is ideal for courses of Spanish and Catalan language and literature, Culture, History and Society, Gender and Women's Studies.
Also available, by the same author:
La Ciudad de los Jóvenes is a fantasy press report by a journalist of the fictitious newspaper «Ara o Mai» (Now or Never) who travels from his city «The City of the Old» to «The City of the Young» to write about the way of life of their new generations. What he finds most astonishing is that «The Young» crave for a «Single Sex» or total hermaphroditism, and scientists work to erradicate the differences between men and women.
Viento de Grop, where the author exposes the need to preserve the Catalan language and heritage, in a region both militarily occupied by the Franco dictatorship since 1939 and invaded by tourists from the sixties onwards. |
