Scope and Content Note
The correspondence of Carmen Laforet (1921-2004) spans the years 1951-1985 and consists of outgoing letters from Laforet to friends Marion Ament, Linka Babecka, Antonella Bodini, and Paquita Mesa. Her correspondence with each of these women is lengthy, introspective, and reflective, spanning decades of friendship and revealing much of Laforet’s writing process, internal struggles with faith and purpose, and family life. The correspondence is written entirely in Spanish and is mostly handwritten with some typed material.
All the letters are written after the publication of Laforet’s first novel, Nada, and a common thread throughout the letters is her dislike of the fame and pressure resulting from that early success; she consistently doubts the strengths of her more recent publications. Another recurring theme is the difficulty of writing, both from the challenge of balancing her professional pursuits with the demands of family life, and from writer’s block, which she refers to as “la enfermeded de no escribir”—the illness of not writing. Her letters to Mesa provide insight into the entire process of writing and publishing La isla y los demonios and other works, like “La Muerta.” Similarly, Laforet’s letters to Ament from the late 1960s describe Laforet’s trip to America that would become the source of inspiration for Paralelo 35, the writing of which is described in her 1970s letters to Ament. More generally, the letters document Laforet’s deeply impactful female friendships, particularly with the correspondents but also with tennis player and author Lilí Álvarez and other Spanish authors, such as Rosa María Cajal, Elena Fortún, Consuelo Burell Mata, and Elena Quiroga.