A wonderfully memorable book about childhood and war. Memorable and highly readable. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

The great thing about the Penguin Modern Classics series is that it introduces the reader to authors that in a perfect world one should have really read by now but somehow, either have been overlooked or more likely not even been aware of. Sadly for an English reader this is all too common when dealing with non English language authors.

After recently reading in this series Sibilla Aleramo's 'A Women' it was another find to encounter Maria Matute's lyrical, subtle and for the time and place, deeply subversive coming of age story set against the conflict of the Spanish Civil War.

First published in 1959 as 'Primera Memoria', it as the translator points out in her excellent introduction is " steeped in myth, fairy tale and biblical allusion".

Mallorca is depicted as an enchanted but wicked island. The complexity of the book, linking the present persecution of those lined up against the clerical and conservative forces to the past, with the island's historic persecution of its Jewish community is one of the underlying themes of the novel.

One can subsitute Republicans for Jews but its allusion is so opaque and the political denunciation so hidden that the book was able to pass the Francoist censors at that time.

The novel is narrated retrospectively in the first person by Matia, a 14 year old girl who has been sent to live on the island under the watchful eye of her despotic grandmother. Also living with her is her duplictious and malicious cousin.

Soon Matia's life will experience and be changed by the conflict and injustice endemic in the prevailing society.

A wonderful and thought provoking novel that rightly deserves its place in the Modern Classics series.

Matia is sent to live with her grandmother on the island of Mallorca following her expulsion from convent school. Whilst her time there starts like a heat-filled adolescent holiday, the arrival of the Spanish civil war forces Matia to experience the adult world, unlike anything she's seen before.

I really struggled with this one. The writing was very detailed, and I did love the vivid descriptions of Mallorca. However, I found it very difficult to see past the racism that was written so casually. The use of this language actually made me detach from the story and I ended up not really following the remainder of the book.

I appreciate that the writing is reflective of the time period, but I, unfortunately, struggled to see past the racism. It was interesting to read a lesser-known classic and the Mallorca setting has made me want to visit!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

One of those ones where I clearly must have got a different version to the one that's raking in all the praise. I'm finding it tedious and repetitive, the prose is pretty awful in that hyperventilating style of overwrought anxiety, the descriptions consist mostly of telling us how hot the sun is and that everything is gold or blue. Abandoned at 56% - despite its brevity, I can't face the other hour or so it would take me to finish.

beautifully, exquisitely translated - almost poetic at times. a touch difficult to read retrospectively in 2020, but i admired it for its beautiful prose and imagery.

- Nirica from Team Champaca

I’m afraid I found Matute’s story of a young girl sent to live with her powerful grandmother in Mallorca during the Civil War a painful and laborious read. I understand that Matute was writing in a different time but the racism and offensive language which is used so casually made me wince, and the whole novel felt as though Matute left too much unsaid to be able to really follow the story.
Whilst the descriptions of the island were vivid and beautiful, they were not enough to redeem this slightly nonsensical story with vile and immoral characters for me.

trigger warning
<spoiler> antisemitism, homophobia, death by fire, losing a parent, child neglect, corporeal punishment </spoiler>

As Mati and her cousin Borja visit their grandmother for the summer holidays, the war breaks out and going back is far to dangerous - especially as everybody seems so sure the war won't take long. This is the story of their summer on the island.

Listen. The prose is beautiful. It made me wonder what else I miss out by not speaking Spanish up the point at which I'd have liked to start learning it, only to remember the stuff I already have to do.
I am a sucker for books narrated by children aimed at adults, which also helped, and since I can't leave my home to go on vacation, it is nice to visit an island and do a vacation in my mind.

While the war happens far away, this book is about how people get collectively tense, and what happens if they don't get provided with a way to vent: They attack the most vulnerable in their midst.
An the protagonist and her cousin are somewhere in-between. Not only did they not grew up on the isle, but they're at that weird age where you're neither here nor there, not adult yet, but also not a child.
They experiment, act out, but ultimately don't know what to do with themselves and thus are on the sidelines, maybe see things their peers on the island would not, which makes this very, very interesting.

Would recommend. It's even short, so you won't need to plan it much of time if you want to give it a try, and I promise that that will be time well spent.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I couldn't get into this book. It took me way longer to read than a book this size usually would.
I found myself disconnected from the story and often having to reread passages.
This one just wasn't for me.

This was a slow-paced coming of age novel, that was written beautifully. I really enjoyed the writing, the most and how she created this 14 years of old girl. The setting was interesting as well.

If you like literary fiction and coming of age stories, this is a well written one.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. The Island is a real coming of age novel, hands in the roots of what it is to be a child growing up in an adult world. I loved the rich writing style and the protagonist’s journey spiritually, emotional conflicts galore and beautiful scenery throughout. I did have a major issue with the plot (or lack thereof) as it has problems lying in it feeling a little stagnant with not much actually happening. Loved the bones laid down in the setting and the characters met within.

So gorgeous, so powerful, it's a revelation that Matute has remained relatively unknown to English readers, and huge thanks to Penguin for bringing us this novel in such a fluid 'doesn't-feel-like-a-translation' translation.

This has all the sensitivity and delicacy of Rosamond Lehmann or Antonia White in the depiction of Matia's troubled coming of age; but her experience is given an added resonance since it takes place against a background of the Spanish Civil War and, even further back, of internecine struggles on the island (Mallorca) where the recall of anti-Semitic conflagrations punctuate the text ('from high up in the square, where the Jews had been burned alive, the sea was like a deep, blue threat').

Themes are treated with great subtlety: the pressure to choose one side or the other; the acculturation of girls; the way enemies on either side may actually be far closer than we, and they, might initially assume (especially important in a civil war).

The writing is stunning and Matute is outstanding in the way she describes landscape and light, her prose filled with sensual details. As someone who tends not to enjoy 'nature writing' in and of itself, what makes it work so beautifully here is the way it reflects on the story: the sun is sometimes malignant, the trees defensive or threatening. Fairy tales haunt Matia's mind but her understanding of what it means to be adult tarnish the stories she has loved.

Ultimately, the writer this book recalled to my mind is Giorgio Bassani in his wonderful Ferrara novels - praise, indeed, from me.

The Island takes place during the summer of 1936 in Majorca - in a Spain where the civil war has just begun - and follows 14-year-old protagonist Matia. She has been kicked out of her convent school, and is sent to live with her grandmother for the summer, accompanied by her 15-year-old cousin, Borja. Throughout the novel we follow their exploits across the island in what makes for a dark, feverish and lyrical coming of age novel which perfectly encapsulates that unique feeling of no longer being a child but still being treated as one, and trying to find one's way in a confusing (and often scary) changing world.

Three stars because while I found the writing very impressive I always felt somewhat detached from the events of the story.

If you’re anything like me (god help you) Matute’s work will have slipped under your radar. Which means, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be quarrelling with the literary gods about this. However, allow me to correct that mistake for you.

Matia is a fourteen year old girl abandoned on the island of Mallorca with an overbearing grandmother, a submissive aunt and a deviant cousin at the outbreak of the Spanish civil war. Through folk-lore, fairytale and biblical allusion, Matia begins to understand more about the world around her. Politically, racially and religiously charged, this novel explores the extremes of childhood, society, isolation, friendship and the point at which innocence dies.

Lyrical prose will forever, for as long as I read and write, be my cup of tea. Matute is a master of description. ‘The flowers, like a shock to the earth, were flushed and alive, curling like a skin and quivering like the sun, shrieking in silence.’ It was hard to highlight one specific descriptor that denotes the radiant, violent beauty of the authors prose. She is able to create imagery - specifically landscape - that is so vivid and real, it almost feels as though you’re seeing it materialise before you. ‘In the golden mist spreading from the cliff, the black trunks of the trees were like sinister, melancholy beings, standing rigid behind the house in a display of mute protest.’ It’s almost so perfect that I’m tempted to find a void to shout into.

Matute succeeded where I consider Angela Carter to have failed. Writing the narrative of a child can often come off as overdone, immature and extremely grating. The Island , unlike The Magic Toyshop, doesn’t suffer from this issue. I’ve never been so wholly convinced of a protagonists age in any text I’ve ever read. She achieves this by making use of several aspects.

The first is the way in which she creates interior dialogue between the protagonist and her inner thoughts. Indicated via parentheses, ‘(Perhaps I just wanted to be loved. I don’t really remember.)’ Not a technique I’ve seen used before, but one I LOVE. It speaks volumes for childhood and the need to question the abundant uncertainties in life. However, there are also times in which she outright asks herself questions, ‘Why did I care so much? ‘Why,’ I asked myself, ‘are things as they are?’ The two for me served as an indicator of her growth and maturity. What she internalised was what she feared to ask, but what she vocalised was a testament to her progression into womanhood.

The second is down to her relationship with Borja. The two are devious, playful and as most children are, complete unwilling to comply with strict rules. There’s also a gang-like conflict between the kids, that at one point escalates quite severely. It serves to show the rising tensions not only politically, but racially and historically. ‘Then they would light their bonfires in the Jewish square, and if we ignored them they burned straw effigies, declaring victory over Borja and Juan Antonio.’ This exploration of anti-semitism is permeated throughout the narrative and whilst it provides background context to the ostracism that some residents face, it is a clear indication that these children are both uneducated about their island’s atrocities, and a product of their environment.

There are layers upon layers to unpick throughout this novel, but at no point for me did it feel like a slow-burn. A testament to Matute’s ability as writer. There is little I could say in the way of criticism. Perhaps, my only issue is that I think some of the characters were irrelevant, and there were stories within the narrative that I would have liked to explore more - the orange grove, for example.

If what you’re looking for is something captivating, educating, exciting and beautifully - if not incredibly - written, then this is one for you.