Esos días azules

Nieves Herrero reveals for the first time the true life of Pilar de Valderrama, Antonio Machado's muse, a woman who, in the twilight of her life, had the courage to confess to the world that she was the Guiomar of whom some of the poet's most beautiful verses spoke. A member of Madrid's high society, married with three children, she risked everything for the love of the only man who truly understood her. Through the testimony and previously unpublished documents provided by Guiomar's granddaughter, the author reconstructs this fascinating story while guiding us through key years of our recent history, culminating in Machado's death in Collioure in 1939. In his pocket, they found a final verse: "Those blue days and that sun of childhood." Did he die thinking of Pilar, the real woman, always dressed in blue, hidden behind the Guiomar of the poems? The answer lies within these pages.