Biography
María Solar works in the fields of both journalism and literature. For many years, she has been a presenter for Galician television and radio. Having studied both journalism and biology, she has published essays on ecology. Her numerous children’s books have been included in the prestigious White Ravens Catalogue. My Favourite Nightmare was voted best children’s book of the year on the literary blog Fervenzas Literarias and won the Lazarillo Prize awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. In the field of adult literature, she has published Stolen Hours, which received the Sarmiento Prize awarded annually by Galician schoolchildren to their favourite book. Her work has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, Polish and Italian.
Synopsis
The novel Stolen Hours (232 pages) is divided into twenty-five chapters and set in April 1979, two years before divorce was legalized in Spain.
Sample
When Lola got home there was nobody waiting at the door to give her a kiss on the cheek, as much as she’d have liked there to be. Only a few years ago the children would shower her with kisses when she came through the door, kisses that were sticky with chocolate, the sweetest and most essential kind of kisses. When the kisses stopped they were replaced by a flurry of questions, all starting with a “Mum, did you know?” Any problems were left at the door. There was space only for love in that house, even if it wasn’t the kind of love you get between two adults. Now the kids were teenagers and they didn’t rush to the door to welcome her home at the end of the day anymore. That’s why she noticed her husband no longer kissed her and even when he did, his kisses didn’t make her feel the same way she had before; there wasn’t any point in her lying.
Portico of Galician Literature 