Matute, Ana María (1926– ), one of the most talented 20th‐century novelists in Spain. She has received numerous literary awards, including the Cervantes Award in 1959. Besides writing novels for adults, Matute is well known for her children's stories in which she makes frequent use of traditional fairy‐tale motifs and stylistic features. Among Matute's fairy tales are: ‘El aprendiz’ (‘The Apprentice’, 1961), ‘Caballito loco’ (‘Crazy Little Horse’, 1961), ‘Carnavalito’ (‘Little Carnival’, 1961), and ‘El saltamontes verde’ (‘The Green Grasshopper’, 1969). More recently, Matute has participated in the fairy‐tale revisionist trend popular in Western literature since the 1970s. Her contribution to this phenomenon is a rewriting of Charles Perrault's ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ entitled La verdadera historia de la Bella Durmiente (Sleeping Beauty's True Story, 1995). In this short novel Matute tries to stick as closely as possible to her source, but she introduces certain changes. To start with, she pays little attention to the first part of the story that concludes when Beauty is wakened by the prince. She is mainly interested in narrating the second and least known part, that in which we are told about the prince's mother's murderous drives towards her grandchildren and daughter‐in‐law. Matute's major contribution consists in giving extra information on the biographies of the prince's parents.

Bibliography

• Ellenberger, Madeleine Michell, ‘Reality and Fantasy in Three Tales for Children by Ana María Matute’ (Diss., University of Virginia, 1973).
• Ulyatt, Philomena, ‘Allegory, Myth and Fable in the Work of Ana María Matute’ (Diss., University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1977).

— Carolina Fernandez

(ä'nä märē'ä mätū'tā) , 1926–, Spanish novelist, b. Barcelona. Much of her fiction reflects her searing experiences as a preadolescent during the Spanish Civil War. In simple, delicate prose she writes of isolation, suffering, and anguish. As characters in her novels she favors children, adolescents, and the humble and rejected. Her works include Los Abel (1948), Fiesta al noroeste (1952; tr. Celebration in the Northwest, 1997), Los hijos muertos (1958; tr. The Lost Children, 1965), and Los soldados lloran de noche (1977; tr. Soldiers Cry by Night, 1995). Matute's wartime experiences are reflected in three semiautobiographical novels, Primera memoria (1963; tr. First Memory in School of the Sun, 1989), La trampa (1973; tr. The Trap, 1996), and Luciérnagas (1993, tr. Fireflies, 1998). Several of her short stories were translated in The Heliotrope Wall and Other Stories (1989).

Bibliography

See studies by M. E. W. Jones (1970) and J. W. Díaz (1971).