Black Bread
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- €13.99
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- €13.99
Publisher Description
In the rough hill country of rural Catalonia, the Spanish Civil War is over and the villagers live under occupation by the fascist Civil Guard. With his father in jail, facing possible execution as a subversive, and his mother working long hours in a factory, eleven-year-old Andreu is sent to live with his grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins in a farmhouse in a remote valley. His inquisitive, self-taught grandmother encourages him to study, but who will Andreu become? He doesn't want to be a farmhand, or work in a factory, or flee into exile in France like his uncle and aunt. His cousin Núria invites him to play sex games with her in the woods, but Andreu cannot stop thinking about a young man he sees lying naked in a monastery garden.
Confronted on all sides by the need to define himself, Andreu must make a difficult decision. One of the major novels of contemporary Spain, and the inspiration for the first film in the Catalan language to be nominated by Spain for an Academy Award, Black Bread brings to life a rural world of mythical force as it traces with piercing psychological insight, in gorgeous prose, the movements of a boy's psyche as he contemplates growing into an adult.
Born in 1933, Emili Teixidor's first novel, Retrato de un asesino de pájaros, was published to tremendous acclaim in 1988, followed by several more which established him as one of Spain's greatest contemporary authors. Teixidor died in 2012.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Acclaimed in its home country of Spain when it was originally published in 2003, this poignant novel by the late Catalan writer Teixidor combines a rural coming-of-age story with the harsh politics of post civil war Spain. Eleven-year-old Andreu, whose father is a political prisoner and mother is a factory laborer, is sent to live with relatives in rural Catalonia after the war. He settles into a seemingly idyllic rural life with his cousins, initially unaware that the children are suspect because of their parents' socialism. But Andreu's cousins are becoming more interested in sex than in childish games, and his father's sudden death in prison contributes to his political awakening. He wants to avoid the fates of those around him farming or factory work but struggles to envision another future for himself. The structure of the novel is intriguing: early on, it could be a bucolic, meandering memoir, interspersing the rhythms of daily life with a few memorable incidents, but both pace and tension increase as Andreu grows up. Teixidor's rich writing style adds to the lush rural feel of the novel, evoking a setting like that of Marcel Pagnol's novels while incorporating a great deal of complex political nuance.
