Mazurka for Two Dead Men - Hardcover

Cela, Camilo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0704370492 ISBN 13: 9780704370494

Publisher: Quartet Books, 1993

Synopsis

Translated from the Spanish by Patricia Haugaard, a novel set in a backward village in Galicia at the end of the Spanish Civil War, in which a man seeks revenge for the abduction and murder of his brother. From the author of THE HIVE.

About this title

Review

Cela never forgets that the mazurka is a dance. He writes with gusto about that fundamental two-step of human existence: sex and death.

The definitive novel of how the Spanish Civil War was actually experienced by ordinary people.

His most mesmerizing fiction, about life during the first four decades of the twentieth century, a life so brutal that the Spanish Civil War, when it occurs, seems a mere continuation of the ordinary. A fiendishly haunting story.

Cela is the Goya of Franco's Spain.--Paul West

There is a secret slot for Cela at his best, as one of the great prose stylists, plural, of Spain--a man dangerously like us.--Roberto Bolano

If there is any Spanish novelist who deserves the Nobel Prize on the merit of narrative experimentation alone, it is without a doubt Camilo Jos' Cela.--Miguel Ugarte

From the Back Cover

Mazurka for Two Dead Men represents a culmination of the 1989 Nobel Prize winner Camilo Jose Cela's literary art. The novel was originally published in Spain in 1983 and is now presented in a fine translation by Patricia Haugaard. In 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, "Lionheart" Gamuzo is abducted and killed, an event recalled repeatedly by the widowed Adega, one of the several narrative voices. In 1939, when the war ends, Tanis Gamuzo avenges his brother. For both events, and for them only, the blind accordion player Gaudencio plays the same mazurka. Set in a backward rural community in Galicia (the author's home territory), Cela's creation is in many ways like a contrapuntal musical composition built with varying themes and moods. In alternately melancholy, humorous, lyrical, or coarse tones he portrays a reign of fools.

About this edition

• Publisher: Quartet Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0704370492
• ISBN 13: 9780704370494
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320