By Ana Mendoza

MADRID -- Octogenarian Spanish novelist Ana Maria Matute offers a vision of the world in which childhood and the power of imagination are weapons for confronting life's challenges in her latest novel, "Paraiso inhabitado" (Uninhabited Paradise), a book that the acclaimed author says may be her last.

"I've never let go of my childhood completely and you pay a high price for that. Innocence is a luxury that one can't afford and that they want to slap out of you," Matute told Efe shortly before the presentation of the new work.

Matute, who sipped whiskey during the interview to overcome her nerves and face the attention and activity that awaited her, said she was "nervous as jelly" because she believes she has put a lot on the line with this book.

It had been eight years since a title of hers was published; now 82, she said it is the only book of hers in which there are "autobiographical elements."

Successive hospitalizations had gotten in the way of her finishing this novel about her "lost childhood." But she also had to stop writing at times because she "became suffocated" trying to put her memories down on paper. "It was almost a physical sensation; it was too much for me because I had to relive many things that happened to me or to people around me."

"Perhaps childhood is longer than life itself." That phrase in the novel reveals the great interest that childhood and all that accompanies it spark in Matute: the magic of stories, the power of the imagination, the discovery of language and how incomprehensible the world of adults - or the "adulterers," as the author prefers to call them - can sometimes be.

"Paraiso inhabitado" could be considered the culmination of Matute's long and distinguished literary career, one in which she has won numerous important prizes, including her country's National Literature Prize.

In the novel, Matute masterfully recreates the daily life of a young girl, Adriana, from a middle-class family in the years prior to the country's ferocious 1936-1939 civil war. The protagonist is a child endowed with a fertile imagination that enables her to transform her reality and dream of better things.

Adriana's childhood is described from the perspective of an elderly woman, from that time in one's life when "you are on the verge of saying goodbye to what surrounds you." Matute says that for this reason she could not allow "deceptions or falsehoods" to creep into her reconstruction of those years.

"Everything I describe I lived in one way or another," the writer told Efe, noting that in the book's protagonist there is much of the girl that Ana Maria Matute was and her way "of seeing the world."

Like the author, Adriana quickly learns the value of stories and does not understand the world of "the giants," their rules or hypocrisies. And like Matute, Adriana does not mind the punishment of being sent to "the dark room," because it is there she can enjoy "the radiance of darkness."

"Childhood is not a paradise or some wonderful world. It can be very cruel and harsh," the writer said Wednesday, adding that she is very concerned about "the abuse perpetrated against children."

In her life as well as her work, Matute always has hailed the importance of imagination. Those who are lacking that faculty are "the coarsest and least affable people," she said.

"Never trust a man who has no imagination, nor a man who doesn't drink," Matute said laughing as she helped herself to another nip of whiskey.

The unicorn that graces the book's cover makes frequent appearances in the novel. It escapes from a rug inside the protagonist's home and returns whenever it likes. "The unicorn is a symbol of innocence, of imagination and of purity," Matute said Wednesday.

The author of "Los hijos muertos," "Olvidado rey Gudu" and "Aranmanoth" said she is concerned about possible criticism of her novel, joking that "if they rip it to shreds now" she will leave this world "with that bad impression."

"I'm a lot older now and it may very well be my last book, not because I'm out of ideas but for health reasons: I could die any day," said Matute, although the gleam in her eyes and her easy smile seem to belie her words.