Matute, Ana María

Ana María Matute was a Spanish author born in a wealthy, conservative family in Barcelona as the second of five children. Her father owned an umbrella factory. Matute grew up and was educated in Barcelona, Mallorca and Madrid. As a young girl, she spent long periods with her maternal grandparents in Mansilla de la Sierra near Logroño in northern Spain because of her fragile health. She has described the village in a collection of short stories entitled Historias de la Artámila (1961). She has also stayed in the Castilian countryside where she became deeply affected by the abject poverty among women and children.