A Feather in the Air

A Feather in the Air is a portrait of an entire historical era at the dawn of the 20th century, centered on Encarnación López Júlvez — La Argentinita — a Spanish woman who made her life a declaration of freedom and art. A dancer, choreographer, and key figure in the reinvention of Spanish dance and culture, she was a muse who moved freely among the most luminous poets, painters, and intellectuals of her time. She traveled the world; from Mexico, where she harvested remarkable success, she wrote letters to her closest friend, the poet Federico García Lorca.

With distinguished narrative and meticulous historical detail, Alejandra Beigbedere delivers a novel that rescues and illuminates the passionate, unjustly overlooked life of Encarnación López Júlvez, La Argentinita. A complete and innovative artist who inspired — and collaborated with — the great creative minds of her moment, she lived a love story with the bullfighter Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, a relationship that would still be considered forbidden and ill-regarded today. Yet she navigated beyond any prescribed rule, guided solely by the heart and an unerring internal coherence, leaving prejudice and social convention behind.

A Feather in the Air is a tribute to authenticity, to the struggle of women artists, and to cultural memory. The story of a woman who, through art and courage, defied convention and left an indelible mark — one of the defining figures of dance, unjustly forgotten, who blazed across the stages of the world and captivated the finest minds of her age.

It is the compelling story of a life lived in full — with the force of a free and sensitive soul that never bent to anything or anyone, and that fulfilled its dream of becoming a singular artist of international stature, working toward that dream to the point of exhaustion, beyond every obstacle, even when that meant death itself.

Alejandra Beigbedere was born in Madrid into a family of artists — a lineage written into her DNA. She is the daughter of the acclaimed, award-winning composer Manuel Alejandro. She studied Philosophy at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where she also completed a doctorate and specialization in Aesthetics. A pianist trained at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, she holds a Master’s in Film and Television Screenwriting from The Core University. She is the author of La Boda de Helena (Ediciones B) and 15 miradas a la amistad (Almuzara).