Sota La Pols

Exploring a boy's childhood in Barcelona during the Franco dictatorship. Under The Dust is based on the autobiographical experience of Catalan author Jordi Coca. The affecting closeness of the boy's first-person narrative and its pitiless realism set this book apart. The boy's bewildered responses to his father's violence and authoritarianism are played out at home and in a neighborhood dominated by street gangs, where politics is never more than a block away.