The novel in which this autobiographical poem is collected, La esfinge maragata is probably one of the best-known books of the immense work of the writer Concha Espina (Santander, 1869-Madrid, 1955).
With it she won the Fastenrath Prize, the highest award at that time –1914– of Spanish literature, granted by the Royal Spanish Academy; the same institution that –according to the biography of the writer on the website of the Royal Academy of History– did not support her in one of her candidacies for the Nobel Prize in which she lacked a single vote to win it.
She was so close to winning it that she has been included in the traveling exhibition that recognizes the work of the Nobel Women and that until mid-August 2019 can be visited in Madrid, at the Hospital 12 de Octubre. She did, however, receive other awards, such as the National Literature Prize in 1926 for Altar Mayor (Wenceslao Fernández Flórez also received it that year), the Gran Cruz de Alfonso X Prize, and the Gold Medal for Merit in Work; in 1938 she was named an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and five years later, vice president of the Hispanic Society of America.
