Hidden Path

Set in early twentieth-century Spain, Hidden Path is a lyrical coming-of-age novel told from the perspective of a woman painter who struggles to find her way with art and with the women she loved. The novel is narrated in the first-person, following Mar a Luisa as she reflects on her life from the turn of the twentieth century through the outset of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939). She recalls growing from an imaginative tomboy into a docile wife and mother before claiming her independence as a portrait painter in Madrid's bohemian and queer circles. Along the way, she introduces us to a lively cast of characters who both hinder and encourage her efforts to blaze her own path. The poetic and sensuous language of Mar a Luisa's private reveries comingles with agile dialogue as the protagonist leads us through her life. Best known in Spain as a writer of children's literature, Elena Fort n left this manuscript unpublished at the time of her death in 1952, as its semi-autobiographi