The text analyses La casa de enfrente (1960), the last novel written by Carmen de Icaza (1899-1979), which has been ignored by the critics. Firstly, we try to find the narrative voice in the episodes related to Auxilio Social –an institution devoted to assist the population during the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship–. Auxilio Social methods and the war winners are considered from the losers’ point of view by an author who was General Secretary of Auxilio Social in real life; secondly, we compare these episodes to her early political discourses aimed to back up the regime. We conclude that the author criticizes some interventions of Auxilio Social and that she has a more complex view of the reality which she expresses with a more elaborate technique. We have to point out that we have found a secondary character in the plot of the novel which is an alter ego of the author herself.
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Although this author did write romance novels, this particular work by her is not described as such:
La casa de enfrente es una novela de suspense en la que destacan las descripciones realistas de lugares concretos del Madrid de posguerra. (58)
and
Carmen de Icaza ha sido considerada por la crítica como una novelista `rosa ́, pero en La casa de enfrente la autora se desmarca de esta tendencia para integrarse de lleno en la generación posterior, denominada “la del medio siglo”, compuesta por autores que presentan una obra “documento que sirve de base a una visión desencantada de la realidad y testimonio social nítido” (sic) (Sanz Villanueva, 2010: 171). (59)
However, there is a romantic element, as the synopsis at the end of the article reveals.
Here's a version of the abstract in English:
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Although this author did write romance novels, this particular work by her is not described as such:
and
However, there is a romantic element, as the synopsis at the end of the article reveals.