Uncontrollable

Buenaventura 'El Coco' Garcia is a 101-year old Spanish anarchist. Throughout his eventful life we encounter many of the major events of 20th century anarchism. Buenaventura is born on the first day of the Tragic Week, then lives through the 'war of the pistoleros' in Barcelona and the rising in Casas Viejas. He fights with the Iron Column in the Spanish Civil War and is interned in concentration camps in France and Germany. He is helped by anti-Nazi German street gangs of Edelweiss Pirates and Schlurfs. Then the Russian state sends him to the gulag for many years and he joins in rebellions in Karaganda and Norilsk. On returning to western Europe he encounters Provo in Amsterdam. Buenaventura is a simple working man but through conversations with his great-grandson Raoul the dramatic unfolding of his extraordinary existence is slowly teased out, and the tenets of anarchism are made plain. We learn too about his life with his compañera Federica, his love for his children, his romantic encounters away from his home in Spain and of his love of bread-making. At the end of the story there is a final shocking surprise in store.