Exploring Spanish Literature

 Today, I will be researching about an author by the name of Elvira Navarro, a very young Spanish author. She is not as well known as other writers, but she did win the Community of Madrid's Young Writers Award in 2004. Her two most popular published books are titled La Ciudad en Invierno (the city in winter) and La Ciudad Feliz (the happy city).  La Ciudad en Invierno, published in 2007,    has a protagonist who is an unnamed woman. She moves from a town in the outskirts of Spain to Madrid, a huge popular city to attend university. The city is the motif in the novel: even though it appears to be welcoming and warm, it is really cold and unwelcoming. The protagonist is forced into a cycle of unstable living conditions and jobs. As she lives, she experiences more and meets more people who lives in the margins along with her.  The story is interesting because it is told in a very minimalist style and captures the overwhelmingness of being a youthful woman in such ...

       This is one of Urrea's most famous poems and I was wanting to read it because of the reference to God in its name. I am currently taking an Honors Philosophy of Religion course and wanted to see if there was any connection to that subject in any way.       For some context, this poem was his opening piece in his 2015 collection The Tijuana Book of the Dead which describes the challenges associated with the U.S border.  The poem paints a portrait of lives affected by transient work, fragmented family structures, and the pursuit of dignity in the midsts of systemic neglect.        The titular "distracted God" symbolizes the feelings of abandonment experienced by marginalized communities. Urrea weaves threads of resilience and hope, acknowledging the enduring human spirit that persists despite adversity . He confronts the idea of faith in a world full of poverty, neglect, and violence. He describes the feelings and in...