Description
Book Synopsis_______________Richly imagined, suspenseful and surprisingly poignant ... a reminder of how Spanish history might have taken a dramatically different turn'' - Financial TimesPersuasive, brilliant and absorbing'' - Economist''Cercas is a master storyteller'' - Independent_______________A suspenseful, dramatic novel by the author of Soldiers of Salamis, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanIn February 1981, just as Spain was finally leaving Franco''s dictatorship and during the first democratic vote in parliament for a new prime minister, Colonel Tejero and a band of right-wing soldiers burst into the Spanish parliament and began firing shots. Only three members of Congress defied the incursion and did not dive for cover: Adolfo Suarez, the then-outgoing prime minister, who had steered the country away from the Franco era; Guttierez Mellado, a conservative general who had loyally served democracy; and Santi
Trade Review‘A brilliant reconfiguring of a key event in contemporary European history. Audacious and wholly fascinating' * William Boyd *
‘Persuasive, brilliant and absorbing' * Economist *
‘Richly imagined, suspenseful and surprisingly poignant ... a reminder of how Spanish history might have taken a dramatically different turn that evening thirty years ago' * Financial Times *
‘An almost Shakespearean account of soldiers, politicians, mixed motives and the lust for power' * Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph *
Cercas is a master storyteller * Independent *
A mesmerising achievement * Literary Review *
Cercas forces us to abandon the fiction, the legend of the coup, and look at the pictures and story anew in all their complexity * Michael Eaude, Independent *
Always a nimble dancer on the edge of history and fiction, the Spanish writer returns with a closely researched but always dramatic account of the failed coup in 1981 that almost vanquished his country's fragile post-Franco democracy * Boyd Tonkin, Independent *
