Books Burn Badly

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A masterpiecexA0;ofxA0;unusualxA0;beautyxA0;by one of Europe's greatest living writersx97;a brilliant evocation of the Spanish Civil WarxA0;On August 19, 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at CoruxF1;a and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. With this moment a young, carefree group of friends are transformed into a broken generation. Out of this incident during the early months of Spain's tragic civil war, Manuel Rivas weaves a colorful tapestry of stories and unforgettable characters to create a panorama of 20th-century Spanish historyx97;for it is not only the lives of Hercules the boxer and his friends that are tainted by the unending conflict, but also those of a young washerwoman who sees souls in the clouded river water and the stammering son of a judge who uncovers his father's hidden library. As the singed pages fly away on the breeze, their stories live on in the minds of their readers.

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Manuel Rivas writes in the Galician language of north-west Spain. A founding member of Greenpeace Spain, he is a major figure in Spanish literature, known for his journalism, as well as for his prize-winning short stories and novels, which include the internationally acclaimed The Carpenter's Pencil. His works have been translated intoxA0;20 languages.