The Life of the Fields

Las cosas del campo is one of three books of Spanish prose poems that are often cited as the most accomplished in this form in the last century. Las cosas del campo is about the people and the landscape of Andalusia at a specific time, in the middle of the last century, still recognisable, still to be found, despite the fact that Andalusia has seen so many changes in these past seventy years. More specifically, it is about the landscape around the family home of the poet near the country town of Antequera in the province of Malaga; about the house, the Caseria del Conde, and the people who lived and worked there. It has come to represent a whole epoch of rural Andalusia and is full of magical descriptions of the land and its people, their character and ways of life. The interest and regard the English have always shown for Andalusia is justification enough for bringing this most attractive book into our language.