Camellia Street

A major work from Mercè Rodoreda’s early, realistic period, Camellia Street is set in war—torn Barcelona of the 1940s and 50s and tells the story of Cecilia, who, abandoned as an infant, ends up fleeing her adoptive family in favor of a more unsettled life of fire—setting, poverty, one abusive man after another, prostitution, and, eventually, a tenuous note of rebirth. Building on the themes of The Time of the Doves, Rodoreda uses Cecilia’s difficult life to explore the strength of one woma...