Liberales, eruditas o sumisas: la representación de las españolas durante la dictadura de Primo de Rivera en Spanish Prelude de Jenny Ballou

Abstract

Within the well-known tradition of British and American authors who lived and described the history of Spain during the first half of the twentieth century, the work of Jenny Ballou records the tense calm before the Spanish Civil War in the last days of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Ballou, who has been compared to George Orwell, recreated in Spanish Prelude (1937) a peculiar travelogue with journalistic and literary traces. Portraits of multiple characters decode attitudes, experiences and emotions in a paradoxical time where the daily routine is mixed with the gestation of the revolutionary spirit. In this context, this study describes Ballou’s contribution to the realistic representation of the Spanish woman in a range that encompasses different social, literary and political classes.