Published for the first time in 1971, Forty Lost Years tells the story of Laura Vidal, a woman who becomes ahigh-fashion dressmaker to the rich women of Barcelona during Franco's dictatorship. Rosa Maria Arquimbau'smasterpiece relives forty years of Catalan history from the proclamation of the Republic to the end of the 1960sand recreates the frivolous atmosphere of sexually liberal republican Barcelona and the desolation of a countrydefeated by the Fascists.