Palacio Valdés and “La aldea perdida”: The Laviana Novelist Who Saw the Mines Arrive

“La aldea perdida” is a novel by Armando Palacio Valdés published in 1903 about Entralgo, his home village in Laviana, and about how the arrival of the mines transformed the Nalón valley. The house where he was born is now the Centro de Interpretación Armando Palacio Valdés, visited by prior booking by phone.

In 1903, a successful novelist published a book about the village where he was born. He called it “La aldea perdida” (The Lost Village), and it told how a valley of shepherds and romerías filled up with smoke, railway tracks and miners. The valley was the Nalón; the village, Entralgo, in Laviana; the author, Armando Palacio Valdés. The house where he was born is now an interpretation centre, and the book reads differently in a valley that ended up living off coal.

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From Entralgo to Madrid

Palacio Valdés was born in Entralgo on 4 October 1853, according to the Real Academia Española; Turismo Asturias spells the village's name Entrialgo. His father was a lawyer and his mother's family owned land in Avilés, where he was educated as a child. In 1865 he went to Oviedo, to his paternal grandfather's house, to do his secondary schooling, and on 1 October 1870 he arrived in Madrid to study law, ignoring, the RAE says, the advice of his family and of his friend Clarín.

A successful author

In Madrid he wrote criticism for the Revista Europea and, with others, founded the tertulia (discussion circle) at the Ateneo. Then came the novels: “Marta y María” (1883), “José” (1885), “Maximina” (1887) and “La hermana San Sulpicio” (1889), which ended up on film. The RAE notes that his books were translated into English, French, Russian or Swedish, among other languages, and were used to teach Spanish at universities in the United States.

He was elected to the Academy on 3 May 1906, although he didn't take up his seat until 12 December 1920, fourteen years later. France made him an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1916; in 1924 he presided over the Ateneo de Madrid, and he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in 1927 and 1928.

The novel that didn't want mines

“La aldea perdida” was published in 1903 with a subtitle that says almost everything: “novela-poema de costumbres campesinas” (a novel-poem of country customs). It's set in Entralgo and the surrounding villages, Riomontán, Fresnedo, Villoria, Lorío and Canzana. At first there are young men fighting with sticks at the romerías, love affairs and gentlemen in their manor houses. Then industry arrives: land is expropriated for the railway, smoke dirties the valley and the miners come. A young lawyer, Antero, champions progress; a scholar, don César, detests it. The ending is tragic, and don César closes it with one line: “ahora comienza la barbarie” (now the barbarism begins).

Wikipedia counts it among the most clearly anti-industrial works in Spanish literature, and partly autobiographical: the author himself appears in it as a boy who watches. Read today, in a valley that ended up living off coal, it's an uncomfortable book, and that's exactly why it's worth reading.

In 1948 it was turned into a film, “Las aguas bajan negras” (The Waters Run Black), by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia. The film softened the message: it dropped the tragic ending, gave it a happy one and presented the mine as progress, changes that Wikipedia attributes to the industrial policy of the Franco regime.

Coming home

He told the story of his childhood and his family in “La novela de un novelista”, from 1921. He died on 29 January 1938 at the Santa Alicia sanatorium, in Madrid, in the middle of the war. On 26 November 1945, as he had wished, his remains were moved to Avilés, to La Carriona cemetery.

The house where he was born

The house where he was born is a two-storey rural manor house built in the 18th century, restored at the end of the 20th century and with a bust of the writer in front. Today it's the Centro de Interpretación Armando Palacio Valdés. On the ground floor are the reception, the shop, a multi-purpose room and the workshops; upstairs is the museum, in five parts: the man and the landscape he grew up in; his work, with a recording of his voice and extracts from his novels; country life, through Nolo and Demetria; work in the mine, through Plutón and Joyana; and the territory.

According to Turismo Asturias, visits are by prior booking by phone, between 9:00 and 14:00, and opening times may change with the season. It's worth going without hurrying, with the book read, or half-read.

Getting there

La Pola, the main town of the concejo (municipality), is the end of the Cercanías C-5 line, which starts in Gijón; the station is called Laviana. The interpretation centre is in Entralgo, by the AS-252 road, according to the address given by Turismo Asturias.

Checked

Facts checked in October 2026 against: Real Academia Española (academician's profile), Wikipedia (Armando Palacio Valdés, La aldea perdida and Línea C-5 de Cercanías Asturias) and Turismo Asturias (Centro de Interpretación Armando Palacio Valdés).