Sergio Jimenez Foronda
Logroño, (EFE).- The novel “Yeguas exhaustas”, by the writer Bibiana Collado, tells the story of “a genealogy of women, who have spent their whole lives pursuing what they were promised, without ever achieving it”, to think, together with the reader, about the current world and “the realities that are made invisible”; a true story of the passage of Spain from the 20th to the 21st century, from the perspective of the working class.
Recently published by the La Rioja publishing house, Pepitas de Calabaza, «Yeguas exhaustas» narrates “what does not fit, what is not going well, what has not just come true and the life that was promised, in a special way, to women”, in that stage of transition, the author, born in Castellón (Valencia) in 1985, explained to EFE.
PhD in Hispano-American Literature and author of several publications, mainly poetry, Collado has reported that this first novel, for her, “has something of an essay because, in each chapter, based on a small anecdote from the life of its protagonist, Beatriz, a whole critical reflection is made ”.
From his point of view, it is “a novel with a lot of social significance, which is radically anchored in the present, but which, in turn, goes back to a genealogy of women, in which there are grandmothers, mothers and daughters; there is a continuity”.
It is a reflection of “life at the end of the 20th century and the transition to the 21st century in that country (Spain), which seemed to modernize so quickly that it seemed that it was going to offer a paradise, and that it did not manage to do so”, so it is a work “very anchored in today”, he recounted.
In it, there are “two very important crosses, one related to criticism of classism and elitism”, and the other, related to “gender and being of the lower class and being a woman”.
Julián Lacalle, editor of Pepitas de Calabaza, explained to EFE that they chose this work because of its background, “a true story, of people who have to get up very early every day so their children can go to university, and of the relationships that this entails», as well as the fact that »entering ‘the Olympus of universities’ and having been able to study does not guarantee being able to have a more than dignified life”.
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