Footnotes

Benito Pérez Galdós

* Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) is considered to be Spain’s greatest nineteenth-century novelist, on a par with Dickens and Balzac. Born in the Canary Islands, he moved to Madrid when he was nineteen and spent most of his adult life there. He wrote novels, plays and stories, his masterpiece being Fortunata y Jacinta. Although his work is usually described as Realist, there is often an element of the fantastic in his writing (as in this story), and this was perhaps what attracted the film-maker Luis Buñuel, who based three of his films on Galdós novels: Viridiana, Nazarín and Tristana.

Emilia Pardo Bazán

* Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851–1921) was born in A Coruña in Galicia, and many of her novels are set in that region. She married at sixteen and moved with her husband to Madrid, where she lived until her death. She was a prolific writer and is often credited with introducing Naturalism into Spanish literature. Her most famous work is Los Pazos de Ulloa (The House of Ulloa). She and Galdós became lovers for a time, and remained friends throughout their lives. She took a keen interest in politics and played an important role in the development of the feminist movement in Spain.

Leopoldo Alas, ‘Clarín’

* Leopoldo Alas, ‘Clarín’ (1852–1901). After studying Law at the University of Oviedo, he moved to Madrid in 1871, where he immediately became caught up in the philosophical and literary debates of the age and began a career as a literary critic and journalist, writing under the pen name ‘Clarín’ (‘Bugle’), making as many friends as he made enemies. In 1883, he returned to Oviedo, where he took up a teaching post and began writing his first novel, La Regenta, which was published in two volumes in 1884 and 1885. La Regenta is both a tale of adultery and a scathing satire on the Church and on provincial life in Spain. The novel caused an enormous scandal at the time and, for a long time, was banned under Franco, with the government censor only giving permission for it to be reprinted in 1962. He wrote one other novel, Su único hijo (His Only Son), and two collections of short stories.

Miguel De Unamuno

* Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) was essentially a philosopher, but he also wrote novels, short stories, poetry and plays. He wrestled with the need to reconcile Reason and Faith, most notably in The Tragic Sense of Life, a concern that is present in everything he wrote, for example in the novels (for which he invented the term nivola) Abel Sánchez, Niebla and San Manuel Bueno, Mártir. He was a very complicated man. Although himself a Basque, he spoke out against the preservation of the Basque language; although an outspoken critic of the monarchy and, subsequently, of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, and although he celebrated the Second Republic that followed the overthrow of Primo de Rivera, he later supported the Nationalist uprising led by Franco, which he felt would protect Spanish values. However, repelled by the brutality of the Nationalist troops, he quickly turned against them and, after a very public dispute with General Millán-Astray, in which Unamuno denounced the Nationalists’ policies, he was put under house arrest and died soon afterwards.

Ramón Del Valle-Inclán

* Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866–1936) was born in Galicia, studied in Madrid, where he also worked as a journalist, and travelled widely in Latin America, particularly Mexico. He was a novelist, playwright and poet and one of the great literary figures of his day. During the First World War, he worked as a war correspondent, visiting the front on several occasions. He wrote novels on a variety of subjects – the Carlist wars, an imaginary Latin American dictator, the corrupt court of Isabel II – but is perhaps best known for his remarkable plays, particularly Divinas Palabras and Luces de Bohemia, which revolutionized Spanish theatre and have been staged several times in English. This story reflects both the dire poverty and the fatalism of many people in Galicia.

1 A Galician troubadour and one of the last of Galicia’s medieval poets.

Pío Baroja

* Pío Baroja (1872–1956) was born in San Sebastián, but his family moved to Madrid when he was only seven. Although he went on to study medicine, he practised only briefly in a small town in the Basque Country, instead, for a time, taking over the running of a bakery in Madrid inherited from an aunt. It was in Madrid that he began to write for newspapers and journals, and, in 1900, he published his first book, Vidas sombrías, a collection of short stories, whose protagonists were fishermen, bakers, vagabonds, prostitutes and, as in the story included here, the bourgeoisie. He read voluminously and was particularly taken with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, whose pessimism chimed with his own. He was greatly admired by John Dos Passos and by Hemingway.

Azorín

* Azorín (1873–1967) was the pseudonym of José Martínez Ruiz. Born in Alicante, he studied law, but abandoned his studies to become a writer and politician. He was a consummate stylist and published novels and several collections of short stories, as well as literary criticism and essays. The protagonist of this story, Félix Vargas, a character who also turns up in the eponymous 1928 novel, is Martínez Ruiz’s alter ego. At the outset of the Spanish Civil War, Azorín fled to Paris, returning to Spain in 1939, where he found himself in ‘inner exile’, along with other intellectuals who had not overtly supported the Nationalists. Accepting Franco’s regime was the price he had to pay in order to be allowed back, and his attitude to that regime remained ambivalent.

Eduardo Blanco Amor

* Eduardo Blanco Amor (1897–1979) was born in Ourense. He was a writer and journalist who wrote in both galego and Spanish. He began working at El Diario de Orense when he was just seventeen and quickly became part of the literary scene, promoting galego culture generally. In 1919, he emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked with other Galician émigrés to foster his mother tongue. He published his first novel, Os Nonnatos, in 1927, and continued to publish novels, poems and plays throughout his lifetime. He returned briefly to Spain in 1933, where he became great friends with Federico García Lorca, but left again at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. He continued to defend the Republican cause from Buenos Aires, and for the next twenty years wrote exclusively in Spanish, only returning to galego in 1956. He went back to Spain in 1965, and, despite government constraints, continued to publish – one long novel and two plays.

Josep Pla

* Josep Pla (1897–1981) was born in Palafrugell, Girona. He went to Barcelona University, where he began studying medicine before changing to law. He read voluminously and began working as a journalist in 1919 and was a correspondent in various European cities. In 1924, he was forced to leave Spain because of an article he wrote critical of the then dictatorship. He continued to travel widely and, in 1925, published his first book, Coses vistes, a combination of travel book, stories, literary portraits and personal memories. It was a huge success. After working in Madrid as a parliamentary correspondent, he left when the Civil War threatened, living in Marseilles, Rome and Biarritz, before returning to Francoist Spain in 1938. Disillusioned with the post-War situation, he went into a kind of self-exile in Palafrugell, but continued to travel and to write. His collected works fill forty-seven volumes.

Rosa Chacel

* Rosa Chacel (1898–1994) was born in Valladolid, but moved to Madrid when she was ten. Homeschooled by her mother, she later went to art school, but decided that she was more interested in literature, becoming a regular at the Café Granja El Henar and the Ateneo, frequented by other aspiring writers. A feminist at a time when this was something of a novelty in Spain, she eventually married the artist Timoteo Pérez Rubio, and they went to live in Rome for five years. She wrote her first novel, Estación, Ida y Vuelta, in 1930, then devoted herself to bringing up her son until the Civil War. Her husband joined the Republican army and she worked as a nurse. At the end of the war, the family moved to Brazil, where they lived for three decades. When her husband died, Chacel returned to Spain and resumed her writing, most notably Memorias de Leticia Valle and the poignantly nostalgic Barrio de Maravillas.

1 The main character, a sorceress, in the Gluck opera of the same name.

Rafael Dieste

* Rafael Dieste (1899–1981) was born in Rianxo in Galicia. He was a writer and philosopher who, as well as poetry, short stories, plays and novels, also published newspaper articles and books on mathematics and philosophy. A staunch supporter of the Galician language, he himself wrote both in galego and Spanish. In 1939, following the Spanish Civil War, he moved first to Paris and eventually to Buenos Aires, where he lived in exile until 1961. On his return to Galicia, he began publishing with Editorial Galaxia, a publishing house devoted exclusively to writers writing in galego.

Ramón J. Sender

* Ramón J. Sender (1901–1982) was born in Chalamera in Huesca province. He left home when he was seventeen and went to live in Madrid, where he worked as a journalist until he was sent to Morocco for his military service. In 1927, he was imprisoned for his anarchist views and fought for the Republicans in the Civil War. When his wife was killed by the Nationalists, he went into exile with his two children, finally settling in the United States, where he taught Spanish literature at the University of Southern California. He wrote over forty novels, as well as essays, newspaper articles, biographies and eight collections of short stories.

Max Aub

* Max Aub (1903–1972) was born in Paris, the son of a French-Jewish mother and a German father. At the outset of the First World War, his father was on business in Spain and unable to return to France. His wife and son joined him and later took Spanish citizenship. Like his father, Aub worked as a travelling salesman, travelling all over Spain. In 1939, following the Spanish Civil War, Aub crossed over into France, where he was denounced to the Vichy regime as a militant communist and a German Jew. He spent three years in work camps, first in France, then in Algeria. In 1942, he managed to escape to Casablanca. There he was able to get a boat to Mexico, where he was later joined by his wife and children, and where he spent the rest of his life. He published three novels on the Spanish Civil War: Campo cerrado, Campo de sangre and Campo abierto, as well as a large number of short stories and novels on other themes.

Mercè Rodoreda

* Mercè Rodoreda (1908–1983) was born in Barcelona and wrote exclusively in Catalan. She is considered to be one of Spain’s and Catalonia’s finest writers. She lived in exile in Geneva for many years, and it was there that she wrote a number of her books, including her best-known novel La plaça del Diamant, which many believe to be the best post-Civil War novel written in any of Spain’s languages. She also published three collections of short stories, which show her astonishing range as a writer, from realism to impressionism to fantasy, portraying the often narrow lives of women with rare sympathy.

Álvaro Cunqueiro

* Álvaro Cunqueiro (1911–1981) was born in Mondoñedo, Galicia, and wrote in galego and Spanish. He abandoned his university course in Santiago de Compostela to become a journalist and got to know many of the foremost writers of his day. He was a member of the Falangist party in the Civil War and worked on the pro-Franco newspaper ABC until 1944, when he ended his collaboration with the regime. He returned to Galicia, where he joined El Faro de Vigo and subsequently became chief editor. During this time, he wrote many articles under various pseudonyms, as well as poetry, novels and short stories, showing a particular penchant for the fantastic. His best-known works are the novels Merlín e familia e outras historias, As crónicas do sochantre and the story collections Xente de aquí e de acolá and Escola de menciñeiros.

Pere Calders

* Pere Calders (1912–1994) was born in Barcelona and started life as a commercial artist. In 1936, he published his first collection of stories, El primer arlequí. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted as a military cartographer on the Republican side and, following the Nationalist victory, spent twenty-three years in exile in Mexico. There he found work as a graphic designer and continued to write and publish in Catalan, writing mainly novellas and short stories, often with a fantastical or satirical edge.

Alonso Zamora Vicente

* Alonso Zamora Vicente (1916–2006) was a philologist, lexicographer, dialectologist and writer. Born in Madrid, his studies were interrupted by the Civil War, but he graduated in 1942 with a Ph.D. on the dialect of Mérida, which was a pioneering work in the field of dialectology. He wrote many books on this subject, as well as literary criticism and scholarly editions of many classic and modern writers. He went on to teach at many of the major universities in Spain and was visiting professor at many others in Latin America, North America and Europe. He had a particular liking for the short story, and published several collections, notably Primeras hojas, Smith y Ramírez, S. A. and Mesa, sobremesa.

Julián Ayesta

* Julián Ayesta (1919–1996) was born in Gijón, in the northern Spanish province of Asturias. His father was a lawyer, a Republican member of parliament and editor of two local newspapers. At the age of fifteen, despite his father’s allegiance to the Republic, Ayesta joined the Falange, the fascist movement founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and fought on the Nationalist side in the Civil War. However, he soon became disillusioned with the Nationalist victory and, after studying at the University of Madrid, he opted to become a diplomat and subsequently spent long periods abroad. Alongside his diplomatic duties, he wrote articles, poems, short stories and plays and became fiercely critical of the Franco regime. In 1952, he published Helena o el mar del verano to great acclaim. It is not so much a novel as a series of interlinked stories very much based on his own childhood experiences. Critics praised the author’s evocation of innocence and joy, and, when one considers what a very grim, joyless place post-Civil War Spain was, it is hard not to experience Helena as a deeply subversive book.

1 The Crown Prince and heir to the Spanish throne.

Miguel Delibes

* Miguel Delibes (1920–2010) was born in Valladolid. Only sixteen when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Navy on the Nationalist side, returning to Valladolid when the war ended and doing a course in business studies. However, he began his career as a caricaturist, columnist and journalist, gradually becoming a full-time writer. He was passionate about the natural world, about hunting and rural life. In 1947, he published his first novel, La sombra del ciprés es alargada, which won the prestigious Premio Nadal. His third novel, El camino, became an instant classic. From then on, he published almost a novel a year, among them Mi idolatrado hijo Sisí, Diario de un cazador, La hoja roja, Cinco horas con Mario and Las ratas to name but a few. He was awarded Spain’s highest honour, the Premio Cervantes, in 1993.

Carmen Laforet

* Carmen Laforet (1921–2004) was born in Barcelona, but went to live in Gran Canaria when she was just two, and spent her childhood there. She studied philosophy at Barcelona University, then moved to Madrid to study law but abandoned her studies in order to write. Her first novel, Nada, written when she was twenty-three, won the very first Premio Nadal, and the book remains a classic to this day. It describes a young girl’s arrival in a sordid, poverty-stricken post-Civil War Barcelona to live with her very strange relatives, now fallen on hard times. Laforet went on to write four more novels and several collections of short stories, but she remains best known for Nada.

Ignacio Aldecoa

* Ignacio Aldecoa (1925–1969) was born in Vitoria, but lived in Madrid for most of his adult life. He was part of a group of writers who began to publish in the late 1940s, a group that included Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio and Carmen Martín Gaite. He began by writing poetry, then went on to publish six novels, among them El fulgor y la sangre and Gran Sol, which won the 1958 Premio de la Crítica. He also published several collections of short stories, notably El aprendiz de cobrador, Pájaros y espantapájaros and La tierra de nadie. His work is concerned above all with the underprivileged and the forgotten. He died when he was only forty-four of a stomach ulcer. His wife was the writer Josefina Aldecoa, who also features in this anthology.

Ana María Matute

* Ana María Matute (1925–2014) was born in Barcelona, but, after she fell seriously ill when she was four, her parents took her to live with her grandparents in a small village in the mountains in La Rioja. The people she knew there coloured all her writing, as did the Civil War and its aftermath. She wrote many novels and even more short stories, and many are haunted by the traumatic effect of war and its consequences on children. Among her most famous novels are Los Abel, Fiesta al Noroeste, Pequeño teatro, Los hijos muertos, Los soldados lloran de noche and, above all, Primera memoria (translated into English as School of the Sun). She was awarded Spain’s highest literary honour, the Premio Cervantes, in 2010.

Medardo Fraile

* Medardo Fraile (1925–2013) was born in Madrid, but, from 1964 onwards, he lived in Scotland, where he was Professor of Spanish at the University of Strathclyde until his retirement. As a student he was very involved in the theatre, but abandoned that world to devote himself to writing – almost exclusively – short stories. He was part of the same group of writers as Ignacio Aldecoa, Carmen Martín Gaite, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio and Ana María Matute. As well as nine collections of stories, he wrote six children’s books, one novel, seven volumes of essays and one memoir. His work brought him many prizes, notably the Premio Nacional de la Crítica. A collection of his stories is available in English, Things Look Different in the Light.

Carmen Martín Gaite

* Carmen Martín Gaite (1925–2000) was born in Salamanca but lived most of her adult life in Madrid. She was largely home-educated by her father, who wanted her to have a secular education. She did her first degree in Romance languages at the University of Salamanca, then moved back to Madrid where she met other young writers, such as Ignacio Aldecoa, Medardo Fraile and Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, whom she married in 1953. She wrote poetry, novels, short stories, plays and children’s fiction, as well as essays on a variety of subjects. She also worked as a translator, translating such works as Wuthering Heights and Madame Bovary. Her work has been widely translated (Variable Cloud, The Farewell Angel and The Back Room are all available in English).

Josefina Rodríguez Aldecoa

* Josefina Rodríguez Aldecoa (1926–2011) was born in León, and came from a family of teachers. She wrote her Ph.D. on the relationship between children and art, going on to found the Colegio Estilo, a secular school focusing on literature, writing and art. While studying in Madrid, she got to know other writers such as Carmen Martín Gaite, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio and Ignacio Aldecoa, whom she married, only taking his name after his death in 1969. She then concentrated on her teaching career but returned to writing in the 1980s with novels such as Los niños de la guerra, La enredadera, Porque éramos jóvenes and El vergel.

Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio

* Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio (1927–2019) was born in Rome to a Spanish father – Rafael Sánchez Mazas, a founder and leader of the Falangist movement – and an Italian mother, Liliana Ferlosio. He wrote two novels, Industrias y andanzas de Alfanhuí (1951), a strange blend of the picaresque and fantasy, and El Jarama (1955), a realistic novel describing sixteen hours in the lives of eleven young friends. He then wrote nothing for twenty years. Some believe this was a kind of silent protest at the Franco regime, but he himself never gave a reason. He returned to writing in the 1980s, writing one more novel, El testimonio de Yarfoz (1986), and several volumes of essays and aphorisms. In 2004, he was awarded Spain’s highest literary honour, the Premio Cervantes.

Juan Benet

* Juan Benet (1927–1993) was born in Madrid. He was unusual among writers in that he combined the profession of engineer with the practice of literature. A friend introduced him to the work of William Faulkner and this, he said later, was what prompted him to start writing. His first novel, Volverás a Región (1967), created a mythical place, Región, much like Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. His style is generally considered to be difficult, but many of his contemporaries considered his work to be groundbreaking, opening up new possibilities for the Spanish novel. He wrote novels, short stories, essays and plays, including an adaptation of four plays by Beckett.

Juan Marsé

* Juan Marsé (1933–2020) was born in Barcelona. He worked initially as a jeweller and did not begin publishing stories until 1958. His first collection, Nada para morir (1959), was awarded the Premio Sésamo. He lived in Paris for a few years, working as a Spanish tutor, translator and laboratory assistant at the Pasteur Institute. On his return to Spain, he worked as a journalist, newspaper editor and scriptwriter. He published Últimas tardes con Teresa in 1966 and has since published many more novels and short stories. All are set in Barcelona, in particular in the area known as El Guinardó, where he spent his childhood, and often describe the bleak post-Civil War period. In 2008 he was awarded Spain’s highest literary honour the Premio Cervantes for his life’s work.

Esther Tusquets

* Esther Tusquets (1936–2012) took over from her father as director of the publishing house Editorial Lumen, and remained in charge there for forty years, publishing both Spanish and foreign-language authors such as Beckett, Woolf and Sontag. Her first novel, El mismo mar de todos los veranos, was published in 1978, three years after the death of Franco, and was the first volume in a trilogy, focusing very much on a female view of life, love and sensuality. She went on to write twelve more novels, as well as short stories, essays and four volumes of autobiography.

Álvaro Pombo

* Álvaro Pombo (b. 1939) was born in Santander, did his first degree in Madrid and for eleven years lived in London, where he studied at Birkbeck College. A resident of Madrid since then, he writes poetry, short stories and novels, two of which have been translated into English as The Hero of the Big House (which won the very first Premio Herralde in 1983) and The Resemblance. He won the 1990 Premio de la Crítica for what is now considered his finest novel, El metro de platino iridiado, the 2006 Premio Planeta for La fortuna de Matilda Turpin and the 2012 Premio Nadal for El temblor del héroe.

José María Merino

* José María Merino (b. 1941) was born in A Coruña, Galicia. He lived for several years in León and currently lives in Madrid. He is a master of the short story and has a particular penchant for the fantastic. He is also a poet, novelist, children’s writer, travel writer and teacher of creative writing. His work has brought him various prizes, including the 2013 Premio Nacional de Narrativa for El río del Edén.

1 The veil between the living and the dead was thought to be particularly porous on certain nights of the year, and St John’s Eve (23 June) became one of those days when the dead were believed to walk abroad.

Marina Mayoral

* Marina Mayoral (b. 1942) was born in Mondoñedo in Galicia and writes in galego and in castellano. She taught Spanish Literature at the Complutense University in Madrid until her retirement. She writes short stories and novels, and many of her novels take place in an imaginary place in Galicia called Brétema. Since 1990, she has written a weekly column in Voz de Galicia.

Cristina Fernández Cubas

* Cristina Fernández Cubas (b. 1945) was born in Arenys de Mar, Barcelona and studied law and journalism. She worked as a journalist until she decided to devote herself entirely to literature. She has written three novels, but is best known for her short stories, which are heavily influenced by the stories she was told as a child. There is a marked fascination with the fantastic and the otherworldly. She is widely recognized as one of Spain’s finest writers of the short story, and her most recent book, La habitación de Nona (Nona’s Room), brought her the Premio de la Crítica.

Juan José Millás

* Juan José Millás (b. 1946) was born in Valencia but moved with his family to Madrid in 1952. He worked in a bank and then for the airline Iberia, writing short stories and novels in his spare time. Since winning the Premio Sésamo with his second novel, Cerbero son las sombras, he has written ten more novels and several collections of short stories, and he contributes a weekly column to El País. His most recent novel to be translated into English is From the Shadows.

Vicente Molina Foix

* Vicente Molina Foix (b. 1946) spent three years at Oxford University teaching Spanish literature. He has written poetry, novels and short stories, and his work has brought him many prizes, notably the 2007 Premio Nacional de Narrativa. In 2001, he began directing films and has since made two: Sagitario and El dios de madera. This story comes from his 2009 collection, Con tal de no morir.

Soledad Puértolas

* Soledad Puértolas (b. 1947) was born in Zaragoza and studied in Madrid. When she became heavily involved in student politics, she was obliged to leave university and moved to Trondheim in Norway for a year. She also lived for three years in Santa Barbara, California, where she gained an MA in Linguistics. She has published many novels and short stories, and her book of stories Adiós a las novias, from which this story comes, won her the 2001 Premio NH.

Carme Riera

* Carme Riera (b. 1948) was born in Mallorca and writes her novels and short stories in Catalan and her essays in Spanish, translating her own novels and stories into Spanish. Her historical novel Dins el darrer blau (1994) brought her the Premio Nacional de Narrativa, the first novel in Catalan to win that prize.

1 A reference to General Franco’s long-drawn-out death in 1975.

Enrique Vila-Matas

* Enrique Vila-Matas (b. 1948) was born in Barcelona and studied law and journalism. His first job was writing for a couple of cinema magazines, and he made a few forays into acting and making films. He has published many novels and short stories, and his work often blends essay and fiction, with frequent references to other writers’ work. He is a regular contributor to the Spanish daily newspaper El País. His work has been translated into over thirty languages, including English, notably Bartleby & Co., Dublinesque and Mac’s Problem.

Javier Marías

* Javier Marías (b. 1951) is considered to be one of Spain’s foremost novelists. He has also worked as a translator, translating works by Conrad, Sir Thomas Browne and, notably, Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. He has published sixteen novels, among them A Heart So White, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, The Infatuations, Thus Bad Begins, Berta Isla and Tomás Nevinson, as well as several collections of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into forty-six languages and won many literary awards, both national and international, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He writes a weekly column for the Spanish newspaper El País.

Bernardo Atxaga

* Bernardo Atxaga (b. 1951) is the pen name of Joseba Irazu Garmendia, who was born in the small village of Asteasu, in the Basque Country. He is the best known of contemporary Basque writers and has done an enormous amount to promote the Basque language and its literature in post-Franco Spain. He has written short stories and novels for children and adults, as well as poetry and songs. Eight of his novels have been translated into English, as well as into many other languages. His children’s book The Adventures of Shola won the 2015 Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation. In 2019 he received the Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas for his whole body of work.

Quim Monzó

* Quim Monzó (b. 1952) was born in Barcelona. He has worked as a cartoonist, a scriptwriter for radio, films and television, graphic designer and war correspondent. He writes in both Catalan and Castilian and has won several important literary prizes, the most recent being the Premio de la Crítica Serra d’Or. Six of his books (novels and short stories) have been translated into English, the most recent being Why, Why, Why?

Paloma Díaz-Mas

* Paloma Díaz-Mas (b. 1954) was born in Madrid and has taught at various universities both in Spain and in the United States, her specialism being Sephardic Literature. She has written scholarly books and novels, including El rapto del Santo Grial (1984), based on the Arthurian legend, as well as short stories and a memoir of her time in Eugene, Oregon, Una ciudad llamada Eugenio (1992). She won the 2000 Premio Euskadi for La tierra fértil.

Julio Llamazares

* Julio Llamazares (b. 1955) was born in the now non-existent village of Vegamián near León and currently lives in Madrid. Initially he trained and worked as a lawyer, but soon abandoned that career to work as a newspaper, TV and radio journalist. He has written poetry, novels and short stories based on his childhood experiences. Two of his novels have been translated into English: The Yellow Rain and Wolf Moon.

Manuel Rivas

* Manuel Rivas (b. 1957) was born in A Coruña in Galicia. He writes mainly in galego and is probably the best-known Galician writer. He began work at the age of fifteen, working as a journalist for a local newspaper. After secondary school, he moved to Madrid where he studied journalism. He has published poetry, novels and short stories, notably ¿Qué me queres, amor?, O lapis do carpinteiro and Os libros arden mal, all of which have been translated into English. The story included here formed the basis for a film directed by José Luis Cuerda.

Carlos Castán

* Carlos Castán (b. 1960) was born in Barcelona, graduated in philosophy from the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid, and has worked as a teacher in various secondary schools. He has always specialized in the short story and his stories have appeared in many literary reviews and anthologies in Spain.

Teresa Solana

* Teresa Solana (b. 1962) was born in Barcelona and now lives in Oxford. She writes in Catalan and Spanish, translating her books both ways. She did her degree in philosophy, then became a literary translator, directing the National Translation Centre in Tarazona, Spain, for seven years. Her first novel, A Not So Perfect Crime, won the 2007 Brigada 21 Prize for best noir in Catalan and A Shortcut to Paradise, her second, was shortlisted for the 2008 Salambó Prize for Best Novel in Catalan. This story comes from The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories.

Javier Cercas

* Javier Cercas (b. 1962) was born near Cáceres, but his family moved to Girona when he was four. He taught Spanish literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and continues to teach at the University of Girona. He published his first novel in 1987, but it was his fourth novel, Soldados de Salamina (2001), that brought him international recognition. He has since published six more novels. His work has brought him many prizes and has been translated into more than twenty languages.

Eloy Tizón

* Eloy Tizón (b. 1964) was born in Madrid and has written novels and short stories. His novel Seda salvaje was shortlisted for the 1995 Premio Herralde, and his 1992 story collection Velocidad de los jardines was chosen by the critics of El País as one of the hundred most interesting books in Spanish of the last twenty-five years.

Karmele Jaio

* Karmele Jaio (b. 1970) was born in Vitoria and writes in Basque. She has written three collections of short stories, three novels and a book of poetry. Her short stories have appeared in many anthologies, including Best European Fiction 2017, and her first novel, Amaren eskuak (Her Mother’s Hands, 2006), was adapted for the screen by Mireia Gabilondo.

Jesús Carrasco

* Jesús Carrasco (b. 1972) was born in Badajoz. He worked variously as a PE teacher, grape picker and graphic designer before devoting himself to writing. His first novel, Intemperie (Out in the Open, 2013), became an international sensation, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. There is also a graphic novel version and a film based on the book. His second novel, La tierra que pisamos (2016), was awarded the EU Prize for Literature.

Javier Montes

* Javier Montes (b. 1976) is a writer, translator and art critic. In 2007, he received the Premio José María Pereda for his first novel, Los penúltimos, and his novel La vida de hotel was translated into English as The Hotel Life in 2013. This story was included in Granta’s The Best of Young Spanish-language Novelists (2010).

Harkaitz Cano

* Harkaitz Cano (b. 1975) was born in Lasarte in the Basque Country and writes in Basque, often translating his own work into Spanish. He has published poetry, short stories and novels and worked as a scriptwriter for film and television. His novel Belarraren ahoa (2004) brought him the Premio Euskadi, and his 2011 novel Twist won the Premio de la Crítica, the Premio Euskadi and the Premio Beterri de los Lectores. This story appears in Beti oporretan (translated into Spanish as El turista perpetuo, 2017).

Eider Rodríguez

* Eider Rodríguez (b. 1977) was born in Errenteria in the Basque Country and writes in Basque and self-translates into Spanish. She currently lives in Hendaye on the border between France and Spain. She studied at the Sorbonne and the University of Madrid, and, in 2004, published her first collection of stories, Eta handik gutxira gaur, from which this story is taken. Her 2007 novel, Bihotz handiegia, won the Premio de Euskadi and the Premio Euskadi de Plata.

1 Red, yellow and purple were the colours of the flag of the Second Spanish Republic, which was the official flag of Spain between 1931 and 1939, when the Republic was overthrown. It was the flag of the Spanish Republican government in exile until 1977.

Elvira Navarro

* Elvira Navarro (b. 1978) studied philosophy at Madrid University and published her first book of short stories, La ciudad en invierno, in 2007. She has since published three novels. Her novel La ciudad feliz (2009) received the Premio Jaén and the IV Premio Tormento for Best New Writer. She was included in Granta’s The Best of Young Spanish-language Novelists (2010).

Cristina García Morales

* Cristina García Morales (b. 1985) was born in Granada. She has written short stories and novels, notably La merienda de las niñas (2008), from which this story is taken. Her 2018 novel, Lectura fácil (Easy Reading), won the Premio Herralde and the Premio Nacional de Narrativa and has already been translated into several languages, including English. She is widely considered to be one of Spain’s most promising young writers.

Aixa de la Cruz

* Aixa de la Cruz (b. 1988) was born in Bilbao. She began writing while still at school and has already written five novels, two of which were shortlisted for the Premio Euskadi. Her short stories have appeared in many anthologies, including this story, which appeared in Best European Fiction 2015.