Ravine

Nivaria Tejera was born in Cuba in 1929 but spent much of her early life in the Canary Islands. A poet and novelist, she was awarded the Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve prize in 1971 for her novel Sonámbulo del sol. Tejera lives in Paris. Carol Maier is Professor of Spanish at Kent State University. She has translated or edited many books, including Memoirs of Leticia Valle by Rosa Chacel, for which she received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work by the Modern Language Association.

"In her translation, Carol Maier manages to achieve a lyrical environment comparable to the original through the use of short sentences, absence of verbs, anguished images, and alliterative language … The Ravine is a necessary addition to the field of Spanish and Transatlantic literature and constitutes a timely contribution to the current wave of historical, cultural, and literary production that rewrites the history of the Spanish Civil War." — Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas"Maier provides not only a sensitive, smooth translation but also an informative afterword. A pleasure to read…" — CHOICE"…a surreal portrayal of the effects of war—not unlike Mohammed Dib's great wartime story of Algeria, Who Remembers the Sea." — Rain Taxi"Profoundly psychological, Tejera's sparse prose is well served by Carol Maier's superb translation." — Barbara Probst Solomon, author of Arriving Where We Started "Though written in the 1950s, its taut description of a civil war's assault on the everyday certainties of childhood rings most contemporary." — Peter Bush, former Director of the British Centre for Literary Translation and translator of Juan Goytisolo's Forbidden Territory and Nuria Amat's Queen Cocaine"Those who cannot read Spanish are fortunate to have access at last to this powerful translation of Nivaria Tejera's most famous novel." — Betsy Hearne, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Part OnePart TwoPart Three GlossaryAbout El barranco, After Twenty YearsNivaria TejeraAfterword: Reading El barranco, Writing The RavineCarol MaierNotes