Theatre
Bohemian Lights
Luces de bohemia
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán · 1920
Opening lines
Max
Vuelve a leerme la carta del Buey Apis.
Read me the letter from Apis the Bull again.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Madrid, in the early 1920s. Max Estrella, an old Andalusian poet who once knew a little glory, has become poor and blind. Accompanied by don Latino de Hispalis, an unscrupulous bohemian, he wanders all night through a sordid Madrid: at a bookseller's who cheats him, in the taverns and cafés where he meets other bohemians and Rubén Darío, then at the police station, where the police arrest and mistreat him, and even in the office of a minister from whom he comes to demand redress.
Context
The play first appeared in weekly episodes, from July to October 1920, in the weekly España; the definitive 1924 version has three more scenes. It inaugurates the esperpento, the grotesque and tragic genre that the author would go on to practise in three other plays. Max Estrella owes much to a friend of the author, the bohemian writer Alejandro Sawa, also blind, and the Marquis of Bradomín, hero of the Sonatas, makes an appearance in it. It was not staged in Spain until 1970.
Who it is for
A play in successive scenes that follow a single night of wandering, in the distorting and bitter manner of the esperpento.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of its author's major works; translated into English for the Edinburgh Bilingual Library, then again in a bilingual edition.