Driving don Camilo: la choferesa’s journey to La Alcarria

• Autores: Vivian Gordon
• Localización: Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, ISSN 1463-6204, ISSN-e 1469-9818, Vol. 27, Nº. 3, 2026, págs. 217-238
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This text shares the experience of Vivian Gordon, the driver of Camilo José Cela during his return in 1985 to the La Alcarria, the region spanning the provinces of Guadalajara, Madrid and Cuenca which he originally traversed during the postwar period in Spain. Gordon, an American who was at the time living and working in Madrid as a haute-couture model, was hired to serve as the driver – or, la choferesa, as denominated by Cela – of the Rolls-Royce that carried the sixty-nine-year-old author through the towns he had visited some forty years prior. Although Cela’s remarks on the trip were published in his Nuevo viaje a La Alcarria and the whole spectacle was covered in the media by the magazines Motor 16 and Lecturas, this text is the first to share the perspective of Gordon, the Stanford-educated, African-American driver who guided and accompanied Cela throughout the trip, dressed in the high-fashion outfit created specifically for the occasion by famed Spanish designer, Elio Berhanyer. Gordon here recounts her memories of the trip; how she navigated the Rolls-Royce through medieval towns and across open plains as much as she adroitly navigated the media spectacle that followed them from town to town.