Alicia Giménez Bartlett

Alicia Giménez Bartlett

Una habitación ajena
Rights sold:
  • Hebrew: Xargol
  • Italian: Sellerio
  • Previously published in: Portuguese (Bico da Pena, Portugal; Ediouro (Bico da Pena, Portugal; Ediouro, Brazil)

Una habitación ajena / Someone Else's Room

Novel , 1997

Lumen

Pages: 304

Lumen’s Women’s Award, 1997  

Ostia Mare Award, 2004 

An original portrait of Virginia Woolf as seen through the eyes of her maid.

For eighteen years, Nelly Boxall worked as cook and servant to Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard Woolf, and an unusual love-hate relationship developed between the two women, about which we find abundant references in the writer’s diaries. Una habitación ajena tells the story of Nelly’s life, her worries and concerns, and the advantages and frustrations of being in close contact with such a special “lady” and her circle of friends, the prestigious Bloomsbury group.

After thorough documentation and having read Virginia Woolf’s diaries, unpublished letters and an extensive bibliography, Alicia Giménez Bartlett produced this great novel that fuses biography, fiction and reflection, and anticipates the most recent debates on feminism and class. It won the Lumen Women’s Award in 1997.

In a new edition revised by the author, Lumen recovers this revealing, unexpected portrait of Virginia Woolf, the iconic writer who aspired for women – although perhaps not all of them – to have a room of their own.

“An intelligent novel that invites us to reflect on our own contradictions.” Olga Merino, El Periódico

“The conversations between Virginia and Nelly are a chance to penetrate the heart of the famous Bloomsbury group.” Moby Dick

“A novel that is the fruit of a modern feminine culture, which leads the author to kindle class consciousness.” Il Messaggero Veneto

"Intense, overwhelming." La Gazzetta di Parma

“Similar to what Vera Nabokov gave Vladimir, Sofia Tolstoy to Lev Nikolaevitch, Dorothy Pound to Ezra, and what endless women and wives gave over endless years endless men – famous or less famous, what comes through Una Habitacion Ajena is that the most valuable thing Buxall gave Virginia was daily caring and motherly attention." Haaretz