Montserrat Roig’s 1972 classical of Catalan literature, Goodbye, Ramona, both opens and closes successful a vivid country of the Spanish Civil War, but if you don’t retrieve the nonstop contours of that highly analyzable conflict, don’t worry. Instead wage attraction to the pistillate being described connected the page, a pistillate we’ll soon travel to cognize arsenic Ramona Ventura, arsenic she searches the streets and yet a morgue for her hubby portion bombs autumn connected Barcelona. The section is afloat of references that mightiness spell implicit your caput if you don’t retrieve each sanction of each governmental faction progressive successful the conflict, but each you truly request to wage attraction to is the adept and terrifying statement of a war-torn city, and a pistillate urgently trying to marque her mode done it.
Roig, who was calved during the Franco dictatorship successful Spain, was a feminist and antifascist activistic successful her mid-twenties erstwhile she published this novel, her first. With it, an important caller dependable successful Catalan lit was announced—a visionary who could constitute astir the astir turbulent times successful Spanish history, but connected a idiosyncratic scale. The publication braids 3 chiseled narratives of 3 generations of women surviving successful Barcelona, each named Ramona, from the precocious nineteenth century, done the Spanish Civil War, and into the politically tumultuous 1960s. Though the lead-up, contiguous carnage, and convulsive process of the civilian warfare is an important backdrop to the novel, that oft-novelized struggle is not her main focus. Instead, Roig is funny successful what happens to these women—whom they emotion oregon are loved by, what they privation oregon are permitted to want—as men successful their homes and men successful their authorities marque choices that dictate the wide people of their lives.
As I began speechmaking Megan Berkobien and María Cristina Hall’s English translation, my curiosity led maine to refresh my representation of the events that precipitated and occurred during the Spanish Civil War, each of which, I suspect, volition consciousness strangely acquainted to the modern reader. The struggle began erstwhile a radical of far-right nationalists, including a ample faction of the military, staged a coup successful 1936 successful effect to predetermination results that they didn’t peculiarly hold with. The battles fought successful the civilian warfare caused, by immoderate estimates, a cardinal deaths, and led to hundreds of thousands of executions successful the years afterward. In 1939 the warfare ended—in portion due to the fact that the leftist/centrist absorption couldn’t hold with each different capable to cohesively quell the far-right coup—and the Franco dictatorship began, an Italian-style fascistic authorities that lasted until Francisco Franco’s decease successful 1975. There whitethorn beryllium immoderate existent satellite leaders who openly respect Franco. They mightiness besides beryllium the leaders who spot thing incorrect with murdering oregon kidnapping their governmental enemies, oregon suspected governmental enemies, successful the streets of their ain country.
As I began reading, my curiosity led maine to refresh my representation of the events that precipitated and occurred during the Spanish Civil War, each of which, I suspect, volition consciousness strangely acquainted to the modern reader.
Roig’s opening throws america successful the convulsive halfway of the Spanish Civil War, but from determination we leap backward successful time. Suddenly, it’s 1894 and we’re wrong the eldest’s Ramona’s diary, conscionable days earlier she is to wed a antheral she hardly knows. This is Ramona Jover, a young pistillate wholly oblivious to what it is her presently unborn girl volition yet person to unrecorded through. Instead, she leads a beingness of comparative calm and luxury, though fewer would telephone it a beingness of state oregon idiosyncratic liberty.
The privileges of Jover’s beingness look wholly superficial, adjacent a spot alien, erstwhile contrasted with her granddaughter’s communicative thread. Ramona Claret is simply a assemblage pupil successful the precocious 1960s, inactive surviving astatine location with her parent and grandma (who, of course, are some besides named Ramona). The youngest Ramona gets progressive successful a legitimately unsafe world absorption against the far-right authorities and is baffled and disappointed by her ain parent who “went done beingness perpetually disoriented by her husband’s moods, similar an awkward small kid who doesn’t expect thing from anyone.”
This youngest Ramona has overmuch higher expectations for the satellite she lives in, and grander ambitions for her spot successful it, yet she falls into a akin trap of tying her happiness to an emotionally unavailable man. She’s hopelessly successful emotion with 1 of the pupil leaders of the resistance; he, successful turn, is truthful consumed with his ain governmental ideas that helium can’t spot that the mode successful which helium treats women is inherently opposed to his professed politics. In these 3 Ramonas we spot 3 imaginable orientations a pistillate mightiness instrumentality against her ain oppression. After an idealistic younker and a consequent tense breakdown, our eldest Ramona, Ramona Jover, yet finds spot successful resignation to what a pistillate calved successful the 1800s tin ever bash oregon be. Ramona Ventura has simply lived done excessively overmuch warfare and seen excessively overmuch decease to bask the luxury of a existent stance oregon reaction; she seems to judge the brutality and coldness of her hubby arsenic the champion she tin anticipation for, portion admiring her ain mother’s strength. The youngest, Ramona Claret, is inactive successful the process of constructing her rebellion against the presumption quo, but it is simply a absorption afloat of existent danger—as state-sponsored kidnappings and executions abound. There’s small solution for Claret, albeit immoderate hesitant hope.
When Montserrat Roig wrote and published this caller successful her autochthonal Catalan, her authorities was inactive trying to suppress the language. Millions of radical spoke and proceed to talk Catalan, Basque, and Galician successful Spain, but Francisco Franco, similar each bully dictators, insisted connected taste homogeny; the usage of immoderate non-Castilian connection successful virtually immoderate signifier of nationalist beingness was banned and made to look unpatriotic, un-Spanish, foreign, and not to beryllium tolerated. As I constitute this introduction, assorted far-right movements, successful my location state and astir the globe, are likewise attempting to oppress their ain citizens. Goodbye, Ramona, such a vivid and sweeping communicative of Catalan refusal to comply with this oppression, is simply a testament to however a language, conscionable similar the tendency to beryllium escaped oregon to emotion oregon to learn, simply cannot beryllium contained.
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Excerpted from the instauration to Goodbye, Ramona by Montserrat Roig. Copyright © 2026 by Catherine Lacey. Published by Modern Library, an imprint of Random House, a part of Penguin Random House LLC
English (US) ·