English  |  Español  |  中文

FCG International Literature Awards 2006: JOSEFINA ALDECOA

  “Because of her style as a writer, teacher and chronicler of post-war Spain, which led to books such as “Los niños de la guerra” [The War Children]; because of the description she made of female figures of the generation of the 1950s in her books of memoirs “En la distancia” [In the Distance], “Historia de una maestra” [A Teacher’s Story] and “Confesiones de una abuela” [A Grandmother’s Confessions]; because of her work as a novelist, in works such as “El vergel” and “El enigma” [The Enigma]; and, finally, because of her commitment to pedagogy, which she materialized in 1960 through the setting up of the Estilo School, from which she transmitted to pupils the spirit of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza [Free Teaching Institute]”,  according to the jury that met in Valladolid on July 3, 2006, chaired by, Mr. Benigno Pendás García, Professor of Political Theory at the Complutense University (Madrid); Mrs. Rosa Pereda de Castro, writer and journalist; Mrs. Paz Ramos Pérez, Journalist of Radio Nacional de España; Mr. Ángel Sánchez Harguindey, Assistant to the Editor of “El País” newspaper; Mr. José Miguel Santiago Castelo, Deputy Editor of ABC newspaper.

 JOSEFINA ALDECOA - Biography

Josefina Aldecoa, Spanish writer and pedagogue and headmistress of the Estilo School, was born in La Robla (León, Spain) on 8th March the 1926.

Having grown up in a family of teachers (her mother and grandmother were teachers who participated in the ideology of the Instituto Libre de Enseñanza [Free Teaching Institute], an institution that emerged at the end of the 19^th century with the aim of renewing education in Spain), she lived in León where she participated in a literary group that produced the Spanish poetry magazine Espadaña. She moved to Madrid in 1944, where she studied Philosophy and Literature and undertook a doctorate degree in Pedagogy at the University of Madrid, centering on the relationship of children with art, a thesis which she later published under the title of El arte del niño [Children’s Art] (1960). During her years of study in the faculty, she was in touch with most of the writer that were later to make up part of the Generation of the Fifties: Carmen Martín Gaite, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Alfonso Sastre, Jesús Fernández Santos and Ignacio Aldecoa, whom she married in 1952 and whose surname she uses, leaving the “R” of Rodríguez before it (Josefina R. Aldecoa), and with whom she  had one son.  For the Revista Española [Spanish Journal], edited by Ignacio Aldecoa, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio and Alfonso Sastre, she translated the first of Truman Capote’s stories to be published in Spain.

In 1959, she set up the Estilo School in Madrid, inspired by the ideas studied in her doctoral thesis, ideas which came from schools she had visited in England and in the United States, and by the educational ideas of Krausismo, the ideological base of the  Instituto Libre de Enseñanza [Free Teaching Institute]: "I wanted something very humanist, giving a lot of importance to literature, language, arts; a school that would be culturally refined, quite free and in which no mention would be made of religion, elements that were unthinkable at the time in most centers in the country.”  In 1961, she published the short-story collection entitled A ninguna parte [Going Nowhere].  In Los niños de la guerra [The War Children] (1983) she wrote an account of the experiences of her generation, a composition that was full of biographical sketches, biographies and literary comments on ten writers that emerged in the 1950s.

In 1969, her husband passed away and she abandoned writing for the next ten years, focusing her attention on teaching, until 1981 when she published an edition of stories by Ignacio Aldecoa. She continued her writing activity with novels such as Los niños de la guerra [The Children of War] (1983), La enredadera [The Bindweed] (1984), Porque éramos jóvenes [Because we were Young] (1986) and El vergel (1988). In 1990, she started work on an autobiographical trilogy with the novel Historia de una maestra [A Teacher’s Story] (1990), Mujeres de negro [Women in Black] (1994) and La fuerza del destino [The Force of Destiny] (1997).

In 1998, she wrote the essay entitled Confesiones de una abuela [A Grandmother’s Confessions], in which spoke of the relationship with her grandson and the experiences she lived with him.  In 2000, she published Fiebre [Fever], an anthology of stories written between 1950 and 1990, and in 2002 El enigma [The Enigma], a love novel.

In 2004, she won the Castilla León Literature Award.

In 2005, she published La casa gris [The Gray House], which she had written when she was 24 years old and in which she narrates –in the form of a novel with a character called Teresa- her life in London and in which she reflected the difference between Spain and the rest of Europe in the 1950s.

Works

- El arte del niño [Children’s Art] (1960)

- A ninguna parte [Going Nowhere] (1961)

- Los niños de la guerra [The War Children] (1983)

- La enredadera [The Bindweed] (1984)

- Porque éramos jóvenes [Because we were Young] (1986)

- El vergel (1988)

- Cuento para Susana [A story for Susana] (1988)

- Historia de una maestra [A Teacher’s Story] (1990)

- Mujeres de negro [Women in Black] (1994)

- Ignacio Aldecoa en su paraiso [Ignacio Aldecoa in his Paradise] (1996)

- Espejismos [Mirages] (1996), a story published in Madres e hijas [Mothers and Daughters]. Laura Freixas (Ed.) La fuerza del destino [The Force of Destiny] (1997)

- Confesiones de una abuela [A Grandmother’s Confessions] (1998)

- Pinko y su perro [Pinko and his Dog] (1998)

- El mejor [The Best] (1998), a story published in Cuentos de fútbol II [Football Stories II] Jorge Valdano (Ed.)

- La rebelión [The Rebellion] (1999), a story published in Mujeres al alba [Women at Dawn]

- El desafío [The Challenge] (2000), a story published in Cuentos solidarios 2 [Stories of Solidarity 2]

- Fiebre [Fever] (2001)

- La educación de nuestros hijos [Our Children’s Education] (2001)

- El enigma [The Enigma] (2002)

- En la distancia [In the Distance] (2004)

- La casa gris [The Gray House] (2005)