The Awakening of Miss Prim- A Novel by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera 2013 -272 Pages - translated from Spanish by Sonia Soto - 2014

 The Awakening of Miss Prim- A Novel by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera 2023 -272 Pages - translated by Sonia Soto

Long ago when I began my blog I intended for The Reading Life to focus on books about people who lead Reading centered lives. I have gotten away from this.

The Awakening of Miss Prim is a beautiful return to this idea for me.

"In this #1 international bestseller, a young woman leaves everything behind to work as a librarian in a remote French village, where she finds her outlook on life and love challenged in every way.

Prudencia Prim is a young woman of intelligence and achievement, with a deep knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she encounters there. Her employer, a book-loving intellectual, is dashing yet contrarian, always ready with a critique of her cherished Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott. The neighbors, too, are capable of charm and eccentricity in equal measure, determined as they are to preserve their singular little community from the modern world outside.

Prudencia hoped for friendship in San Ireneo but she didn't suspect that she might find love—nor that the course of her new life would run quite so rocky or would offer challenge and heartache as well as joy, discovery, and fireside debate. Set against a backdrop of steaming cups of tea, freshly baked cakes, and lovely company, The Awakening of Miss Prim is a distinctive and delightfully entertaining tale of literature, philosophy, and the search for happiness." From the Publisher Simon and Schuster 

I totally enjoyed The Awakening of Miss Prim.

"In just one sentence, how would you describe The Awakening of Miss Prim to someone who hasn’t yet read it?

I’d say it’s the story of Prudencia Prim, a young librarian, covered in academic qualifications, who arrives in San Ireneo de Arnois, a village that has declared war on the modern world.

I am in love with the village of San Ireneo de Arnois and its ideals. Where did you find your inspiration for it?

Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Many people ask me about the whereabouts of San Ireneo. The village doesn’t exist, it’s an imaginary place, but it’s inspired by the European tradition. Europe was built on small communities near abbeys like the one in the book, with an economy based on craftsmanship, solid families, ancient traditions and a very ordered life, in which each thing was done in its own time. That was the model I drew inspiration from to write the book. And that’s how San Ireneo was born, a place where people’s lives have a human scale and where tradition and culture are understood as treasures. In a world that’s so fast and so noisy, I think that’s what makes many readers ask me whether such a place exists, and wonder where it is." An author interview in The New Zealand Booklovers blog