La Regenta

In the shadow of the Cathedral of Oviedo stands a bronze statue of La Regenta, the tortured fictional protagonist of one of Spain's most beloved novels, set in a city based on Oviedo. 

La Regenta is a 19th-century realist novel by author Leopoldo Alas y Ureña, known popularly as Clarín, featuring a female protagonist, Ana Ozores, who is also known by the title "The Regent." 

The plot revolves around the dramatic personal life of La Regenta who marries an older man, Victor, a retired magistrate who is kindly but somewhat oblivious and self-absorbed. The story is set in a fictional city of Vetusta which is heavily based on the appearance and cultural character of Oviedo, where Clarín lived and taught as a professor of Roman law for much of his life. 

Feeling unfulfilled by her marriage, La Regenta embarks on a scandalous affair with a notorious womanizer named Álvaro Mesía. To complicate matters even further, the Catholic priest to whom Ana confesses her desires falls madly in love with her and becomes a bitter rival of her lover Mesía.

Through his novel, Clarín satirized and critiqued what he saw as the deeply entrenched hypocrisy, repression and corruption of the Catholic church in 19th-century Spanish society.

The statue of La Regenta was created by Asturian artist Mauro Álvarez Fernández in 1997 and has since become one of the most photographed public sculptures in Spain. It celebrates the city's rich literary tradition and pays homage to a masterpiece of 19th-century literary realism.