A student approaches me and says in a very apologetic tone of voice, “Professor Clarissa, I like reading.”
Then she seems very scared of what she said and proceeds to explain this strange preference, “I just do. I don’t know why but I simply enjoy reading.”
“This is good,” I say, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “I like reading, too.”
“So I was thinking,” the student says, “would you be able to recommend any books in Spanish that I could read?”
I’ve been hoping for years to hear this question. Oh joy, oh happiness! A student in a literature course actually likes to read.
I will now recommend the books I have read in Spanish this month and really enjoyed. Since many people who read this blog are not Spanish-speakers, I will put the recommendations under the fold.
1. Benjamin Prado is a writer from Spain whose work I only discovered a few weeks ago. I already love him, though. His novel Mala gente que camina is narrated by a hapless high school teacher of literature who is trying to save his research from being boring by investigating the life of a writer who militated in the fascist Falange while writing a novel to denounce the crimes of the Spanish fascists. For those who are learning Spanish, this novel is great because it reads very easily and has a great plot.
2. Edmundo Paz Soldan is my former colleague from Cornell and also a great writer. I just finished his novel Norte, and I enjoyed it almost in spite of myself. I’m not sure what the writer was trying to do with the novel but what he achieved to do with me is almost to convince me that all Hispanic immigrants in the US are crazy, lazy or hazy. But the book is very well written, so I highly recommend.
3. Almudena Grandes from Spain is continuing her series of novels about the Republican maquis who kept fighting against the Franco dictatorship long after the Civil War was officially over. The most recent installment in the series is El lector de Julio Verne.
4. El tiempo entre costuras by María Dueñas is a fascinating story of a seamstress who realizes that being a man’s appendage is a losing strategy in life and learns to be self-sufficient as the Spanish Civil War rages on. The novel exists in an English translation.
Have you read anything good in Spanish recently?
Clarissa's Blog 
“A student in a literature course actually likes to read.”
She’s not the only one, she’s the only one that told you so.
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who told…
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The only one in a very long time.
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Why do other people go to literature, if they dislike reading? May be a few think the degree will be a breeze and / or weren’t accepted to other places they applied to, but surely it can’t be but a minority, right?
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@el I can answer based on my own teaching experience. Many Spanish major students study Spanish because they love the language, because it is practical, because it completes well another major (economy, environmental science, political science, pedagogy), because they fall in love with Spain and/or Spanish America, or because they have another, equally valid reason. This does not mean that they like literature, but we, professor of Spanish, know better than our students. We know that studying literature allows our student to develop their critical skills and their understanding of the language/culture/politics/economy more than anything else. So literature is often mandatory to complete a major in Spanish, even if students often dislike the idea of having to read actual literary texts.
Last semester my literature students were looking at me with ‘sharp knives in their eyes’ because they clearly did not want to be in my class. This semester is a completely different story: like Clarissa I have students who enjoy reading literature and come to my office discussing literary texts. For me this is an absolute joy and I know that it does not often happen in a career.
I also think that a student who decide to major in Spanish knows already that it is not going to be easy. Students figure out that Spanish is not easy if they take Elementary Spanish 1 with me. This is one of the cliche I want to fight (the Spanish-is-easy-cliche).
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Yes, what Ol said!
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Our program is called “Spanish”. Literature is something we trick them into. 🙂
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When I started my own BA in Hispanic Studies, I also had no idea it would end up being a literature program. For me, it was a nice surprise, though.
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Yes, I read “Tiempo entre costuras” 2 years ago and it is a fantastic and enjoyable book. I truly recommend it.
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I tried to read EPS and I could not read after +/-page 15.
Your student being shy about enjoying literature speaks volume about the (not-so) passive hostility towards intellectuals and intellectual life in some places of the world. The poor student almost confessed her love of literature as if it were a disease.
I am so happy for you that you have one students who likes lit.
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I like how EPS writes. But what annoys me is a) the obsession with prof/grad student romances b) his ultra-weird female characters (here, he is very similar to every other Latin American male author. I have to ask, have these men ever seen a woman? Jeez).
Other than that, I think he is quite good.
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Hurrah for readers!
I enjoyed the start of Javier Marias’ ‘Todas las almas’, and hopefully I’ll find time soon to start reading it on my daily commute again!
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Could you recommend anything for intermediate students? I’m worried these would be too difficult for me.
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There is this novel called Entra en mi vida by Clara Sanchez that I found recently. The language is extremely easy and accessible. I think this is a great novel to read on an intermediate level.
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I didn’t read the original Spanish, but I loved Irlanda.
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This book came out over ten years ago, but it is still a good read:
La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
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Yes, I highly recommend it as an entertaining, accessible, fun to read book.
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