It was the first time I traveled alone, but I was not scared.

At age 12 Carmen Laforet suffered the loss of her mother and her father subsequently married a woman disliked by Laforet and her siblings (unsavory experiences portrayed in much of her literature). Del Mastro on the search for identity in Laforet's novels}
Like Salinger Laforet maintained a very distrustful relationship with her critics especially after Carmen Laforet struggled to match the outstanding critical acclaim of her first novel. In 1942 Carmen Laforet departed for Madrid where Carmen Laforet studied Law at the Universidad Complutense.

An important European writer her works contributed to the school of Existentialist Literature and her first novel Nada continued the Spanish Tremendismo literary style begun by Camilo José Cela with his novel La familia de Pascual Duarte. Carmen Laforet (Barcelona 6 September 1921 – Madrid 28 February 2004) was a Spanish author who wrote in the period after the Spanish Civil War.