"Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martin Gaite is a fascinating window into the life and later works of one of the most eminent Spanish novelists of all times. Joan L. Brown combines relevant history, original analysis and personal anecdotes from 'Calila’s' personal letters into a compelling and delightful rendition."
~María-Luisa Guardiola, editor of the Royal Spanish Academy's critical edition of Antonio García Gutiérrez's El trovador
"Martín Gaite’s works are now studied all around the world, especially in further education establishments. More and more students are researching her latest novels and Calila will be an indispensable read as Brown combines the critical study of the author’s texts, with their socio-historical background, and a personal view of the process of writing."
~Maria-José Blanco, author of Life-writing in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Cuadernos de todo and her Novels of the 1990s
"As I read Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martín Gaite, I had to battle the temptation to put the volume aside in order to re-read the novels that Brown analyzes in the book. There can hardly be a greater testament to a literary critic’s skill than her capacity to communicate to the reader her love and enthusiasm for the texts she analyzes. Brown’s central argument in Calila is that Martín Gaite’s novels of the 1990s deserve to be read, and the book will, without a doubt, bring new and returning readers and inspire renewed critical interest in the writer’s later work."
~Hispania
"This insightful monograph on Martín Gaite’s final six novels is part-literary criticism and part-personal anecdote based on the extended friendship between the author and Brown who draws from a variety of scholarly sources, personal correspondence and photographs to provide readings of her works."
~Anales de la literatura española contemporánea
“Joan L. Brown manages with Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martín Gaite to refresh and update the already extensive bibliography about the writer with a very documented, very well written and very personal essay. And, above all, she manages to encourage us to look for her novels and read them, to vindicate the validity of the narrative of Carmen Martín Gaite to enjoy reading and understand the end of the twentieth century.”
~Revista Letral
