White on Black - Softcover

Gallego, Ruben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 015603235X ISBN 13: 9780156032353

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2007

Synopsis

This is an extraordinary personal testament, the story of one boy’s triumph in the face of impossible obstacles. Born with cerebral palsy in Moscow, Ruben Gallego was hidden away in Soviet state institutions by his maternal grandfather, the secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party in the 1960s. His was a boyhood spent in orphanages, hospitals, and old-age homes, a life of emotional deprivation and loss of human dignity.   And yet there is no self-pity here, no bitterness, only an unfailing regard for the truth. Gallego’s story is one of neglect and mistreatment but also of shared small pleasures, of courage, of the power of the human will, and of a child’s growing fascination with books and the worlds he finds in them.

About this title

Review:

'An exceptional testimony to the triumph of the human spirit' (Evening Standard)

'A painful story of the handicapped abandoned in Soviet orphanages' (Publishing News)

'Extraordinary' (Mail on Sunday)

'Miraculous' (Observer)

'A triumph' (Guardian)

'Astonishing' (The Times)

Groundbreaking (New York Times)

'An incredible and moving autobiographical novel' (Andrey Kurkov, New Statesman)

Book Description:

A heartbreaking memoir of extreme neglect

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 015603235X
• ISBN 13: 9780156032353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168