That flamenco also lives on the page and not only on stage is something we love to champion whenever we have the chance. Because within words and stories, the rhythm, emotion and memory of this art beat just as strongly.
In this second edition of our literary recommendations, the Flamenco Dance Museum invites you to discover three books that move away from a purely academic approach and venture into more personal and journalistic territories, while also reclaiming the role of women in flamenco.
Three readings that broaden our perspective on this art — not from study, but from experience, intuition and passion.
FLAMENCOS. Journey to the Lost Generation
Manuel Herrera — Almuzara, 2022
Flamencos. Journey to the Lost Generation, by Manuel Herrera, is a work that pays tribute to the anonymous artists of flamenco: those who, through their art and sacrifice, upheld the foundations of an immortal genre without ever achieving fame.
Through deeply human portraits and interviews, Herrera reconstructs the lives of cantaoras, bailaores and guitarists who, like Perrate de Utrera, Tía Anica La Piriñaca or Tomasa y Pies de Plomo, embody the rawest and most profound essence of popular flamenco.
His prose blends sensitivity and rigor, transporting the reader to a time when cante was more a means of survival than a spectacle. The book is also a cultural and emotional testimony — a journey to the heart of a humble Andalusia, where music springs from pain, dignity and passion.
With the voice of a deep connoisseur and an unbreakable love for his art, Manuel Herrera offers his most valuable legacy: preserving the memory of the forgotten — those who, without ever stepping onto grand stages, gave flamenco its true soul.
Against Flamenco. Documentary History of the Granada Cante Jondo Contest, 1922
Various Authors — Libros Corrientes
Editors: Carlos García Simón and Samuel Llano
This monumental work, edited by Samuel Llano and Carlos García, restores the true significance of the famous contest promoted by Manuel de Falla and supported by intellectuals such as Federico García Lorca, Zuloaga and Rusiñol. More than a musical event, it was a cultural and political phenomenon of enormous impact that shook Spanish public life and crossed national borders.
The volume brings together 271 texts published in the press from February through the months following the contest, forming a mosaic of chronicles, debates, satires and reflections on identity, tourism and patriotism.
Among the documents are writings by both celebrated figures — García Lorca, Falla, Manuel Machado — and forgotten voices — Edgar Neville, Mauricio Her, Bernardo Morales Pareja — offering the reader a plural and compelling view of one of the most intense and complex episodes in 20th-century Spanish culture.
Flamenco Pioneers: The First Women of Flamenco through the Stories and Memories of the Era
Fernando el de Triana; Guillermo Núñez de Prado — Libros Corrientes, 2024
Flamenco Pioneers is a journey to the origins of flamenco through the voices — sometimes barely whispered — of 75 women who shaped this art from its very foundations. The book rigorously and sensitively recovers the testimonies and memories collected by Núñez de Prado and Fernando el de Triana, the two primary sources documenting these forgotten artists.
Alongside legendary figures such as La Niña de los Peines, La Serneta or La Mejorana, the book also brings to light names nearly erased from memory, like La Chata de Madrid or La Tanguera. From the cafés cantantes to Andalusian courtyards, all of them helped forge a music in which women were not ornament, but root.
Despite the weight of a historical gaze that often reduced or exoticized them, Flamenco Pioneers restores humanity and centrality to these creators. More than a tribute, it is a necessary reconstruction: the history of flamenco finally told through the traces left by its women.