Las confesiones de Antonio Mairena

Curatorial Note

Autobiographical testimony of Antonio Mairena (1909–1983), one of the most influential Spanish Roma flamenco singers and theorists of the twentieth century. Prepared from Mairena’s oral accounts by Alberto García Ulecia, the book combines personal memoir with reflections on the history, transmission, and aesthetics of flamenco, addressing family origins, Gitano identity, artistic networks, and the development of Mairena’s concept of cante gitano-andaluz. First published in 1976, the work constitutes an important primary source for the study of Roma self-representation in modern Spain and the intellectual history of flamenco. Mairena’s interpretation of flamenco history reflects the influential and subsequently contested ideological framework associated with Mairenismo, making the volume significant both as personal testimony and as a historically situated statement on Roma cultural authorship and musical heritage.