Life's a Dream

A beautiful and haunting tale of love, betrayal, knowledge, and power, Life’s a Dream (La vida es sueño, 1636) is the best known and most widely admired play of Catholic Europe’s greatest dramatist, Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Calderón’s long life (1600–1681) witnessed both the pinnacle and collapse of Spanish political power as well as the great flowering of Spanish classical literature.

Despite its longtime place atop the Hispanic canon, Calderón’s masterpiece remains relatively unknown by general readers outside the Spanish-speaking world. Michael Kidd’s new prose translation aims to correct this deficiency by rendering the play into a transparent, modern American idiom that preserves the beauty and complexity of Calderón’s Baroque Spanish. The result is a highly readable and adaptable text that is enhanced by a generous selection of supporting materials, including a thorough critical introduction and glossary.