Dona Luz

Juan Valera y Alcala-Galiano (1824-1905) was a Spanish realist author, diplomat, and politician. He was born in Cabra, a province of Cordoba, and after graduating from the University of Granada with a degree in law he entered upon a diplomatic career. Over the next fifty years he filled a number of positions in far-flung locations, becoming a member of Spanish legations at Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Dresden, and St Petersburg. After his return to Madrid in 1859 he became one of the editors of the liberal journal El Contemporaneo, and in 1865 was appointed Minister to Frankfurt. After the revolution of 1868 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of State and Director of Public Instruction, and later took up ministerial positions in Lisbon, Washington, and Brussels, becoming Ambassador to Vienna from 1893-95. He was elected to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 1900. Throughout his diplomatic and political career he wrote a number of works which are acknowledged as among the highest his country's literature has produced. Pepita Jimenez, which first appeared as a serial in 1874, is his best-known work and has been translated into many languages. First published in 1879, Dona Luz tells the story of a beautiful, cultured and pious young woman whose profligate father has squandered his fortune on a dissolute life in Madrid, necessitating retirement to rural Andalusia. Here, Dona Luz is courted by many admirers but, aware of her own illegitimacy and modest financial status, she has decided against marriage. However, with the arrival of two young in the town, the direction of her life is destined to change. The first is Father Enrique, an ailing missionary with whom she develops an affinity based on their shared views, particularly on the value of faith. The dashing Don Jaime Pimental, who has come to take part in a local election, is a very different character - handsome, secular, and worldly. The two men vie for the attentions of Dona Luz and she is torn between her intellectual bond with the former and physical attraction to the latter. Reprinted from an original Spanish language edition.