Islas interiores

Clotilde Cerdá, whose stage name was Esmeralda Cervantes, was a harp prodigy who left us a dozen compositions and toured the world giving concerts. But Clotildina was much more than that. The illegitimate daughter of the renowned urban planner Ildefonso Cerdá and the painter Clotilde Bosch, she became an enigmatic and barely remembered figure who transcended borders, genres, and dogmas. From her close relationship with Queen Isabella II, she went on to teach in the harem of the Sultan of Constantinople; she inspired the Ecuadorian writer Juan Montalvo; she became a Freemason, founded the Academy for the Enlightenment of Women, and fought, with firmness and conviction, for the freedoms and dignity of women. The famous islands of Barcelona's Eixample district are also a metaphor for other, more intimate islands: the inner territories of a free, visionary, and unconventional woman, whose existence unfolds in this novel like a passionate map.