Travesía de María Zayas

The name reaches here on the rebound. A travesía is not named for itself but for the street it crosses or extends, and this one repeats that of the calle de María Zayas, which runs nearby between Bravo Murillo and the heart of Berruguete. Behind the sign stands María de Zayas y Sotomayor, a writer born in Madrid in 1590. In 1637 Zayas published her Novelas amorosas y ejemplares, which placed her among the great storytellers of the Golden Age. Castillo Solórzano gave her the nickname Sibyl of Madrid. In her pages she defended women’s access to education, an uncomfortable idea for her time. She died around 1653, in poverty, and for centuries was almost erased from the textbooks; today she is read as a pioneer of the Spanish novel. The tribute in Tetuán is modest and doubled: besides the street and this travesía, a neighborhood Social Services Center bears her name.