Lecturer Anna Caballé receives the National History Award for a biography on Concepción Arenal
The lecturer of Spanish Literature and head of the Unit of Biographical Studies of the UB, Anna Caballé Masforroll, received the National History Award, given by the Ministry of Culture, for her work Concepción Arenal, la caminante y su sombra (Taurus, 2018). According to the jury, the work gathers “all the requirements of excellence in a history book: historiographical and methodological newness, many sources and a scientific and rigorous presentation of the biographical study of a figure people do not know enough about but who is important in the history of Spain”.
The lecturer of Spanish Literature and head of the Unit of Biographical Studies of the UB, Anna Caballé Masforroll, received the National History Award, given by the Ministry of Culture, for her work Concepción Arenal, la caminante y su sombra (Taurus, 2018). According to the jury, the work gathers “all the requirements of excellence in a history book: historiographical and methodological newness, many sources and a scientific and rigorous presentation of the biographical study of a figure people do not know enough about but who is important in the history of Spain”.
Concepción Arenal, mother of the Spanish feminism
Described as “the definite biography of the mother of the Spanish feminism”, this work by Caballé could be divided into two marked periods: nervous, sensitive and arrogant youthfulness, with difficulties to find the balance between reason and temper, and a maturity in which the writer, thinker and activist would dare to make big things. Concepción Arenal, with a unique intelligence, was born in Ferrol in 1820. She was the most important, original and modern Spanish thinker of the 19th century, and the one with the largest international outreach. She dedicated her life to defend women, the legal reform and labour cause. In Concepción Arenal, la caminante y su sombra, Caballé reconstructs her life, aspirations and successes.
Recovering, preserving and studying autobiographical writing
Anna Caballé Masforroll (lʼHospitalet de Llobregat, 1954), is a tenured lecturer of Spanish Literature at the University of Barcelona and author of more than twelve books related to her field of expertise: analysis of autobiographical literature. Some of her distinguished books are Vida y obra de Paulino Masip (1998); Narcisos de tinta. Ensayo sobre la autobiografía en lengua castellana (1995); Francisco Umbral. El frío de una vida (2004); La vida escrita por las mujeres (2004), Una breve historia de la misoginia (2006); El feminismo en España. La larga conquista de un derecho (2013), and Carmen Laforet, una mujer en fuga, in collaboration with Israel Rolón (2010 but re-edited in 2019). Also, she has published a hundred articles in journals and collective works.
With a large academic career, she has been visiting lecturer in the universities of Wszechnica Polska (Warsow), Virginia (United States) and Pontificia de Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS, Brazil). She is currently the president of the association Classiques i Modernes (Classics and Moderns).
Caballé is the head of the Unit of Biographical Studies of the University of Barcelona, created in 1994 and which has the support from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Catalan Government. The Unit focuses its research on recovery, preservation and study of autobiographical writing. It is registered at the journal from the group Memoria. Revista de Estudios Biográficos, published by Editions and Publications of Barcelona, where Caballé was the editor between 1996 and 2007.