''Mararía'' (1973) is a novel by the Spanish Canarian writer
Rafael Arozarena. Published in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
by
Noguer in 1973, it was subsequently turned into a successful film in 1998.
''Mararía'' is considered a classic work of Canarian literature.
Plot summary
A traveler goes to the village of
Femés in
Lanzarote
Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula.
Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the islands in the archipelago. With 163,230 inhabi ...
. There he takes an interest in Maria, called "Mararía" by the villagers, who walks in the shadows at night. The inhabitants tell him stories about her; it seems everyone has been entrapped by her in the past. All of her relationships ended badly, and she was held to be responsible. Now she is an old woman who walks in the dark and endures barking dogs and people's comments. She is presented as a symbol of purification and self-destruction.
References
1973 novels
20th-century Spanish novels
Spanish novels adapted into films
Novels set in Spain
Lanzarote in fiction
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