Ana María Matute

"Because writing, for me, has always felt like a constant desire to go through the mirror, to enter the forest…"

Ana María Matute

"The forest was the place where I liked to escape during my childhood and my teenage years. It was my favorite place. There, I learned that darkness shines, moreover, that it radiates light; that the birds use their wings to write ancient words on the wind, where all the books in the world have sprouted from…"

This unique story begins like that, with a text of fable and poetry, extracted from the speech that the Barcelona writer, Ana María Matute, delivered when she got into the Real Academia de la Lengua Española (the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language). It talked about images and characters that have walked with her during her long literary career: the whispers of secrets, the invisible lives that hide in the shadows, and the voices of those who live in the heart of the world.

This edition, illustrated with the delicacy and the intimate strokes that characterize the style of Elena Odriozola, pays tribute to the cosmogony of the fairy tales that inspired the writer, created from nature and literature, reality and fantasy; antinomies from which the greatness of her work unfolds.

Ana María Matute was a great storyteller. For her, books were like mysterious forests, and writing was her constant will to enter them, to go after the words that revealed the stories that we know and sense. In 1996, when she occupied a K chair in the Real Academia de la Lengua Española, she proved in her speech her passion for books and the imaginary forests that make up her literature; a world that has fascinated her since childhood.

An essential book for children's literature lovers, regardless of their age, and for the admirers of the work of this distinguished writer.