“En cinco minutos levántate María (Get Up in Five Minutes, Maria) is the kind of novel that has been seen before but nonetheless has three important virtues: a big heart, literary ambition and brilliant writing.
Woman waking up
The novel is the interior monologue of a woman in her sixties remembering her life as she tosses and turns in bed before getting up. Next to her is the body of her husband, whose name we never learn because Maria simply calls him ‘that man’ as an expression of the life-long conflict revealed slowly by the novel. (…) It is very similar to Cinco horas con Mario (Five Hours With Mario) in which Miguel Delibes explores the emotional void of a woman who spends her life oppressed by convention, misogynistic rules and the trials and tribulations of life.”
Translation by The Spanish Bookstage - www.thespanishbookstage.com
Read more here (Luisgé Martín, Babelia, El País)
