"This is an old and wicked island. An island of Phoenicians and merchants, of bloodsuckers and frauds." Ana María Matute's 1959 novel (original title Primera memoria) is a stifling story of rebellious adolescence, narrated by Matia, as she struggles against her domineering grandmother, schemes with her mercurial cousin Borja and begins to fall in love with the strange boy Manuel. Steeped in myth, fairy tale and biblical allusion, the novel depicts Mallorca as an enchanted but wicked island, a lost Eden and Never Never Land combined, where the sun burns through stained glass windows and the wind tears itself on the agaves. Ostensibly concerned with Matia's anxieties about entering the adult world, this internal conflict is set against the much wider, deeper, and more frightening conflict of the civil war as it plays out almost secretly on the island, set in turn against the backdrop of the Inquisition's mass burning of Jews in previous centuries. These two conflicts shimmer at the edges of Matia's highly subjective account of her life on the island, where life is drawn along painful and divisive lines.

In Soldiers Cry by Night, 1964, the second volume of The Merchants (1959-1969), an award-winning trilogy about the Spanish Civil War, Ana María Matute uses a realistic setting and autobiographical detail to depict triumph and loss. Manuel and Marta are forced to accept the end of their innocent childhood happiness, and must come to terms with the allegiances and betrayals of the harsh adult world. During the Facist attack on Barcelona the two young people are forced to choose sides. Their decisions will forever change their lives.

Book by Matute, Ana Maria, Matute, Ana María