Empty Wardrobes

A previously untranslated classic of Portuguese literature originally published in 1966, Maria Judite de Carvalho's Empty Wardrobes introduces English-speaking readers to a forgotten and under-appreciated woman writer a la recent publishing sensations Tove Ditlevsen, Lucia Berlin, Natalia Ginzburg, Silvina Ocampo, and Armonia Somers. Empty Wardrobes is tightly plotted and highly entertaining read, a book that, thanks to an ingenious detached narrative technique (one that makes the plot all the more fun to revisit and rethink), is both darkly humorous and devastatingly true.

Maria Judite de Carvalho (1921-1998) is widely considered one of Portugal's most important writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Born and educated in Lisbon, with a secondary education in France, Carvalho's work spans painting, journalism, and fiction, with a specialization in the short story and novella forms. A writer of great concision with an eye on modernization, the changing politics of Portugal, and the effect of contemporary life on everyday people, especially women, Carvalho published widely and to great critical acclaim in her time. Empty Wardrobes is her first work available in English.