Portal de Turismo de Castilla y León

Dates

21 April to 23 July 2025

When?

Soon

Link

To know more

To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000), the Library of Castilla y León wants to pay tribute to her by hosting the exhibition "The Strange Thing Is to Live."

The Salamanca-born author is one of the most important writers of 20th-century Spanish literature. Her novels include Entre visillos (Between Curtains) , Caperucita en Manhattan ( Little Red Riding Hood in Manhattan), and Nubosidad variable (Variable Cloudiness ). In addition to being a writer, poet, novelist, essayist, and translator, she also ventured into other cultural fields: she was an occasional actress, sang in public with Amancio Prada, wrote scripts for film and television, worked in the theater, and taught at various institutions. Her work as an amateur cartoonist is even better known, filling her "Cuadernos de todo" (Notebooks of Everything) with colorful illustrations and collages. Carmen Martín Gaite received numerous awards throughout her career, including the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature and the Nadal Prize.

The title of the exhibition, which opened in Salamanca in 2001 and will now be presented in our library, reflects the author's own vision of life, which she considered extraordinary and surprising; hence the title of one of her last novels, Lo raro es vivir (The Strange Thing Is to Live) (1996).

The exhibition's curator, Santos Sanz Villanueva, defined her as a writer who managed to combine quality with popularity in her work and personality. The exhibition consists of 16 large explanatory panels covering her roots, childhood, adolescence, and youth, completing the chronological sequence of her life, without forgetting her family and her love of performing arts.

We have a special date with this Castilian-Leonese author in this exhibition, which we celebrate World Book Day and which will close on July 23rd, coinciding with the date of her death. The exhibition can be visited in the Fiction Room during library opening hours. It will be an excellent opportunity to get up close and personal with this outstanding author of Spanish literature.

More information: Carmen Martín Gaite