The River: El Jarama (Dedalus Europe 1992-2004) - Softcover

Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1903517176 ISBN 13: 9781903517178

Publisher: Dedalus Ltd, 2004

Synopsis

During the Spanish Civil War, the River Jarama was the scene of a bloody, month-long battle, which ended in a stalemate. The Republicans suffered about 25,000 casualties and the Nationalists 20,000. In the novel, set nearly twenty years later, the Jarama has become a favourite picnic spot for those wanting to escape the Madrid heat. The novel describes one broiling hot day in August. Various groups of people from Madrid - young and old, married and single - have gone down to the River Jarama to swim and to picnic. During the course of the day they talk, flirt, get drunk, argue and, mostly, make their peace, and the novel carries the reader effortlessly from conversation to conversation, allowing us to eavesdrop on the characters' very ordinary and profoundly recognisable lives. Sánchez Ferlosio has a fine ear for the rhythms and poetry of spoken language, He has an eye too for the dark poetry of that 'great, silent, caressing beast', the River Jarama, and it is the river which, long after the war has ended, claims yet another victim.

About this title

About the Author

Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, the son of a Spanish father and an Italian mother, was born in Rome in 1927. He is one of Spain's most celebrated novelists, and yet his reputation is based largely on two novels: his first book, The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhui, (1951) and The Jarama (1956), which won the Spanish National Critics' Prize. One is a children's fantasy for adults, the other a minute dissection of one tiny chunk of reality.Since their publication, both have acquired the status of classics in Spain: they have both been reprinted dozens of times and sparked a vast amount of literary criticism.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dedalus Ltd
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1903517176
• ISBN 13: 9781903517178
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 406