Dulce Dueño

Dulce Dueño (Sweet Master), published in 1911, stands as Emilia Pardo Bazán's final novel and a compelling testament to her literary audacity. This critical edition, meticulously prepared by Nuria Godón & Carmen Pereira-Muro, reveals a work that defiantly transcends conventional literary and gender classifications, challenging the reductive categorizations often imposed upon the author throughout her illustrious career.

Part of Pardo Bazán's modernist trilogy (alongside La Quimera and La Sirena negra), Dulce Dueño showcases her profound engagement with modernist aesthetics—a keen sense of preciousness, light, color, and the interplay of sound and silence. It is, notably, the first time in her extensive narrative where the protagonist's female voice and first-person perspective dominate, framing the text as a powerful autobiography.

Through the character of Lina Mascareñas, a female "dandy," Pardo Bazán champions individual liberty, fiercely contesting societal limitations imposed on women across maternal-filial, educational, sexual, and pseudoscientific domains. The novel functions as a Bildungsroman femenino, where Lina navigates a complex world, resisting patriarchal gazes and constructing her own identity against formidable societal pressures.

This edition not only acknowledges Pardo Bazán's pivotal role in introducing Naturalism to Spain but also expands our understanding of her interdisciplinary contributions to Modernismo, her engagement with emerging genres like detective fiction, and her unwavering advocacy for women's voices. The critical introduction provides a pluralistic, historical-cultural, narratological, feminist, and interdisciplinary approach, reflecting the richness of Pardo Bazán's diverse cultural production.

Often culminating in a controversial ending that has long divided critics—interpreting Lina's path as either a subversive mystical union or a tragic submission—Dulce Dueño remains a vibrant and essential text for advanced studies in Spanish literature, gender theory, and the complexities of fin-de-siècle Modernismo.