Con la guerra civil, «lejana y próxima a un tiempo, quizás más temida por invisible», como telón de fondo, Primera memoria, Premio Nadal 1959, narra el paso de la niñez a la adolescencia de Matia —la protagonista— y de su primo Borja.
Los dos viven en casa de su abuela en un mundo insular ingenuo y misterioso a la vez. A través de la visión particularísima de la muchacha —sin madre y con padre desaparecido— asistimos a su despertar a la adolescencia, cuando, roto el caparazón de la niñez, ciega y asombra y hasta a veces duele el fuerte resplandor de la realidad. Una intensa galería de personajes constituye el contrapunto de su vertiginosa sucesión de sensaciones. Y es que en unos meses, Matia descubrirá muchas cosas sobre «la oscura vida de las personas mayores».

Matute is an acclaimed writer in Spain, her work heavily influenced by her own childhood experience of the Spanish Civil War. The Island is the first in a semi-autobiographical trilogy of books, but the only one translated into English (in fact it's the only one of her works translated as far as I can see on Amazon).

Set during the Spanish Civil war, 14 year old Matia has been sent to live with her matriarchal grandmother on the island of Mallorca after being expelled from her convent school. Also living there are her slightly older male cousin Borja and his mother, and a housekeeper and her young son, who is tasked with schooling the two children until they return to school. It's a coming of age story, but a bleak one at that. With a dead mother and a father who has abandoned her, Matia is looked after by her aunt and grandmother but feels little that resembles love. The adults in the novel are all unlikeable, full of prejudice and holding onto societal divisions, and Matia's coming of age story is essentially one of discovering that it's a cruel, unfair world out there. Whilst the island itself isn't directly impacted by the Spanish Civil War, many of its male inhabitants are away fighting, and the class and religious struggles which were some of the many facets of that war pervade the bleak sentiments of this novel. In this loveless atmosphere which seems to envelop much of the town, unsurprisingly the children too are often cruel and unruly.

At one point I almost abandoned this novel, but in the end I was glad I stuck with it. It's not a bad book by any means; it's just relentlessly bleak, and as a novel that's not plot focused its pessimism and unlikeable characters - young and old - sucked the life out of me at times.

3 stars - Despite myself, I'm finding myself thinking about this book and its uneasy atmosphere but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it. ( )

"The Island" concerns childhood, broken by war, betrayal, and jealousy. It is a powerful short novel that offers little by way of resolution, leaving the reader with almost as many questions at the end as were seen at the start; but the time you spend with these strange, strong characters is most certainly worthwhile. ( )

Así, nos encontramos con una novela imprescindible. Una obra maestra con identidad propia, un estilo narrativo del que nos queda mucho que aprender y disfrutar. Podemos gozar de personajes bien construidos, con auténtica profundidad. Ana María Matute conocía las letras, las quería, las cuidaba y las hacía crecer. Merecen ser leídas y amadas por nosotros.

https://alibreria.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/critica-a-primera-memoria-de-ana-mari... ( )

Primera memoria de Ana María Matute:
Con la guerra civil, 'lejana y próxima a un tiempo, quizás más temida por invisible', como telón de fondo, Primera memoria narra el paso de la niñez a la adolescencia de María y de su primo Borja.
La trama resume la actitud de una disidente del franquismo, y presenta, en un microcosmos protagonizado por adolescentes, desde el verano de 1936 hasta el invierno de 1937, una parábola de la Guerra Civil que los mayores lidiaban por aquellos años. ( )