ABSTRACT
The lives of many women changed during the Spanish Civil War, although most remained in the rearguard and were relegated to the shadowlands of history.1 Anxiety and the constant threat of death produced in many women emotional trauma from which it took years to recover. When the War was over, and despite a lack of data, it was clear that more women than men survived. Their lives were, of course, affected by the conict, although their wounds were mostly emotional. Later, during Franco’s repressive dictatorship, women on the losing side were also victims of a culture of fear that compelled them to remain silent. Their War memories and experiences remained mostly untold until the death of the dictator. In her poems and through a poetic “I,” Gloria Fuertes tells her own and other women’s stories in an effort to recover the painful past and also to recognize their place in the ow of history.
