Fiction. Cultural Writing. THE BACK ROOM was the first of Gaite's novels to appear in Spain after the death of Franco, and the first to be translated into English. In 1978 it was awarded Spain's National Prize for Literature. Translated from the Spanish by Helen Lane, THE BACK ROOM describes a woman's conversation with a nighttime guest, to whom she tells the story of a woman coming of age in the repressive Spain of the Franco era. An intimate and existential confession -- part autobiography, part fiction -- Gaite's finest work explores the back room of memory with a quiet but irresistible power. ...intensely serious, literary and wryly humorous... -- New York Times.