Sotileza

Synopsis

Sotileza is a novel of local customs by José María de Pereda, published in 1885, that portrays the seafaring Santander of the mid-nineteenth century, a world that had already vanished by the time it appeared. Silda, an orphan whose fisherman father died in a shipwreck, grows up mistreated by the Mocejón family until she runs away. Taken in by the kindly tío Mechelín and tía Sidora, who begin to call her Sotileza, she becomes the centre of a story that brings together the lives of three suitors: Muergo, Andrés and Cleto. The novel moves through the streets, docks and taverns of the fishermen's quarters, and it preserves a largely lost maritime vocabulary that Pereda himself explained in a glossary at the end of the book. It is regarded as one of its author's most important works.