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Bottom of the pile
23
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
11/100Critics
35/100Scholars
Author:
Javier Cercas
Publisher:
Knopf
Date:
January 14, 2020
Javier Cercas grew up hearing the legend of his adored great-uncle Manuel Mena, who died at nineteen in the bloodiest battle of the Spanish Civil Warâwhile fighting for Franco's army. Through visits back to his parents' village in southern Spain, interviews with survivors, and research into the murkiest corners of the war, the author pieces together the life of this enigmatic figure and of an entire generation.
What The Reviewers Say
Javier Cercas’s last book, The Impostor (2017)...is one of the most accomplished books I’ve ever read. His new novel is even better. It opens with an agonised liberal facing up to an embarrassing family past, and ends as a wise and humane meditation on history.
... [a] brave political and family history.
... finely translated.
Cercas’s 'nonfiction novel,' first published in Spanish in 2017, presents an altogether more unsettling challenge for politically correct readers — as it must have done for the author himself.
