The effervescent decade of the sixties in much of the Western world was not so in a Spain weighed down for decades by Francoism. At the time I already reviewed the novel «Today is bad but tomorrow is mine«, By Salvador Compán, and which presented the constrained space of Spanish reality at that time.
In the case of this book The night before, Bea Cabezas it addresses that same historical period but from another angle, the one that affected women, a silenced feminism in that gray Spain, where women seemed accustomed to their domestic destiny.
Ana is a young woman who works at Diario de Barcelona as a stenographer. His main assignment is to assist Eduard, a novice journalist. The labor relationship of these male and female characters is born intoxicated by the marked social guidelines, by the assumed roles and by a naturalized hierarchy per se.
Eduard discovers in Ana a woman gifted for journalism. Perhaps due to his temporary status as an upstart in the trade, he accepts Ana's ability to function and interact with him almost as equals. And together they embark on the task of participating in the drafting of the cultural agenda. They interview European musicians and soak up that other reality in the Pyrenees above.
Ana discovers in journalism a devotion, a fascination, a profession frustrated by the mere fact of being a woman. Her rebellion is then fiercely awakened, she tries to go as far as possible and raise her voice in search of equality and recognition of women's work capabilities.
The relationship with Eduard does not always move along the paths of understanding and support. He is in the comfortable position of not being prosecuted. In his admissible intention to prosper in the union there is no room for involvement with Ana's lost cause. The frictions are frequent and the disagreements marked.
But Eduard listens to Ana. At least he agrees to empathize with her, and understands the injustice that hangs over Ana and women in general. In short, a plot that introduces us to one of those particular struggles that he added to gestate and cause change.
You can buy the book The night before, the new novel by Bea Cabezas, here: