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Bergmann, Emilie L., and Richard Herr, eds. Mirrors and Echoes: Women's Writing in Twentieth-Century Spain. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007. 175 pp.
The title of Emilie L. Bergmann and Richard Herr's edited volume, Mirrors and Echoes: Women's Writing in Twentieth -Century Spain, evokes the idea that Spanish women's writing is a reflection of their bodies and voices that, although present throughout history, were not always acknowledged. The collection consists of essays on fiction, poetry and theater that spa most of the twentieth century. While some essays offer new insight on canonical writers such as Carmen Martin Gaite, others examine lesser-known writers including Maria Martinez Sagi and Concha Méndez.
Unlike other recent studies on Spanish women writers, Bergmann and Herr dedicate the first part of their collection to personal reflections on womanhood and writing. Soledad Puértolas's essay "Mujer del espejo" emphasizes the symbolism of the mirror addressed in Bergmanns introduction to Mirrors and Echoes. The use of mirror, as a vehicle of self-analysis, evokes recent studies on Spanish women writers (see Mudrovic, W. Michael. Mirror, Mirror on the Page: Identity and Subjectivity in Spanish Women's Poetry 1975-2000). In contrast to Puértolas's focus on the private experience of self-reflection in an enclosed space, Clara Sanchez's essay "Cómo escribí Un millón de luces" covers the creation of her most recent novel at the time of the publication of Mirrors and Echoes. For Sánchez, space is the "punto de anclaje" for the structure of her novel and the means by which her narrative develops (23).
Following the essays of Puértolas and Sanchez, section two, "Performing Modernity: Gender and the Body between the War," consists of P. Louise Johnsons research on women's athletics in pre-Civil War Barcelona and Nicole Altamirano's study on the poetry of Concha Méndez. Johnson shows in her investigation of women athletes in pre-Civil War Catalonia, that great...