Published for the first time in 1971, Forty Lost Years tells the story of Laura Vidal, a woman who becomes a

high-fashion dressmaker to the rich women of Barcelona during Franco’s dictatorship. Rosa Maria Arquimbau’s

masterpiece relives forty years of Catalan history from the proclamation of the Republic to the end of the 1960s

and recreates the frivolous atmosphere of sexually liberal republican Barcelona and the desolation of a country

defeated by the Fascists.

Translated by: Peter Bush