Historia de macacos

by Francisco Ayala, Carolyn Richmond

Esta es la primera edición crítica que se hace de Historia de macacos, una colección de relatos de Francisco Ayala cuya propia historia ha sido hasta el momento, por razones circunstanciales, bastante azarosa.(...) Si bien los seis relatos que componen la obra apelan constantemente a lo universal, no por ello carecen de conexión con la inmediata realidad -tanto histórico-política como cultural- contemporánea a su redacción. Se corresponden asimismo con las preocupaciones sociales y literarias simultáneamente expresadas en sus ensayos por el autor, uno de los pensadores más lúcidos y originales del presente siglo.

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Francisco Ayala García-Duarte was a Spanish writer and teacher. Born in Granada, he had his first novel, Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espíritu, published when he was only nineteen. At the start of the Spanish Civil War, Ayala was out of the country. He returned for a brief time, later serving as secretary of the Spanish Republic's legation in Prague. At the end of the civil war he moved, as an exile, to Argentina where he lived between 1939 and 1950. There he taught sociology while continuing to publish works of fiction, literary criticism and sociology, notably a three-volume Tratado de la sociología (1947.) He also lived briefly in Brazil and after 1950 in Puerto Rico, where he taught at the University of Puerto Rico. He later moved to the United States, teaching in various universities, including Bryn Mawr, Princeton, New York University and Brooklyn College. In 1956 he returned to visit Spain for the first time but did not return to live there till 1980. He continued to write essays and fiction on various themes into his old age. Many of his writings deal with the topics of power and abuse of power. In general he did not directly written about the war in Spain, but examines it instead through other periods of history. Some of his works are:

- La cabeza de cordero (1949)
- Muerte de perros (1958)
- El fondo del vaso (1962)
- El regreso (1992) and
- El escritor en su siglo (1990)

In 2005, his memoirs were published, titled Recuerdos y olvidos.

Ayala died in November, 2009, in Madrid, when he was 103 years old.

Reviews

[Iñaki Tofiño · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relato que narra las miserias de la vida colonial en la Guinea española, tiene su interés como documento histórico y como parodia de los discursos grandilocuentes sobre el colonialismo español en África.

[agremon · Rating 4 out of 5]

6 historias cortas de corte algo irregular, pero recomendable.

[JOAN BASSETS · Rating 4 out of 5]

llegit el 2022

Molt ben escrit, amb un castellà molt ric, un conte curt divertit. Per ser del 1952 parla amb claretat, cosa sorprenent.