Margarita de Borbón y Parma barely appeared in Spain’s official history for more than a century. She now takes center stage in «Anhelado Madrid / La reina que pudo ser», a novel by José Vélez García-Nieto. The book brings her into view as the woman Carlists called their queen consort during the Tercera Guerra Carlista.
Madrid is more than scenery here: the city stands for longing and hope. Margarita, daughter of Charles III, Duke of Parma, was born in Lucca in 1847 to the Parma ducal family. She entered Spain’s stormy 19th century when she married Carlos de Borbón y Austria-Este, the Carlist claimant known as Carlos VII. For Carlist followers, she was their queen, but the crown never came. Distant and almost out of reach, Madrid becomes a symbol of the dreams and heartbreak that shaped her life.
Vélez García-Nieto refuses to let Margarita fade into a footnote. He portrays her as a woman marked by loyalty and grit, shaped by loss and obscurity. The Spain around her is battered by poverty and political conflict as civil war rages; dreams are crushed by history’s weight. The author seeks to restore the human side of a figure erased from official records, using Madrid as a stage for loss and hope.
The book’s launch at the Círculo Mercantil e Industrial de Sevilla drew people from several fields, including pharmacy and publishing, with artists also present. Esteban Moreno Toral was among those in attendance. Trinidad Pérez Ballester joined him, as did Pablo Méndez Jaque. The event focused on how the novel captures the desires and struggles that shaped Margarita’s fate. It also raised a bigger question: how does history choose its basic characters, and who gets left out?
José Vélez García-Nieto knows about reinvention. He has worked in pharmacy and health communication, and has also done public outreach, bringing a careful, almost clinical curiosity to his writing. Dickens shaped his focus on social context. Galdós and Palacio Valdés also inform his attention to the inner lives of his characters. In «Anhelado Madrid», that approach becomes a layered portrait of a woman and a city, both hungry for recognition and a future beyond what others expect of them.
The story may be set in the 19th century, but its questions feel current. Memory and identity still matter, as do the stories that shape a nation. Reclaiming Margarita’s story means correcting the record and pushing back against silence. As with other overlooked moments, including the reported basic stage in Spanish women’s rugby, the real impact comes from being seen at all.
By putting Margarita de Borbón y Parma at the center, Vélez García-Nieto brings an overlooked life back into the historical record. He reminds readers that the edges of history are crowded with lives shaped by their times. «Anhelado Madrid / La reina que pudo ser» recovers one woman’s story and asks who gets to tell Spain’s.
