Ana Maria Matute

Ana María Matute (1925–2014) was a Spanish novelist and member of the Royal Spanish Academy, one of the giants of twentieth-century Spanish literature. Her novel The Island — a story of a strange, luminous family villa off the coast — displayed her love of mythological—and of childhood much admired by García Márquez.

Matute wrote through the Franco years as the leading woman voice of the Spanish post-war generation, publishing such works as Los soldados lloran de noche. She won the Premio Cervantes, Spanish literature's highest award, in 2010. Her prose, epigrammatic and poetic, is treasured for its green, secretive Mediterranean world.