Wolf Moon

Having lost the Civil War in Spain, four republican rebels lead a fugitive existence deep in the Cantabrian mountains. They are on the run, skirmishing with Franco's soldiers, knowing that surrender means execution. Wounded and hungry the rebels are frequently drawn from the safety of the mountains into the villages they once inhabited, not only risking their lives but the lives of anyone helping them. Faced with the lonely mountains, harsh winters and unforgiving summers, it is only a matter of time before the Fascists hunt them down.

Published in 1985, Wolf Moon was the first novel to break with the Pact of Forgetting (Pacto del Olvido), a political and cultural amnesty in Spain provided for Franco's supporters following his death in 1975. Llamazares's lyrical prose serves to animate the wilderness, making the Spanish landscape as much a witness to the brutal oppression of the Franco regime as the persecuted villagers and republicans.

Translated from the Spanish by Simon Deefholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles