Una historia más

First published in 1554, Lazarillo de Tormes was destined to beget a whole new genre, the so-called picaresque novel. Its great popularity may be attributed largely to its daring autobiographical form, which allows the reader to observe the magnificent, conquering Spain of Charles the Fifth through the inner consciousness of a humble figure called Lazarus, whose name, perhaps, comes from the poor leper mentioned in the Gospels. The Lazarillo is the first literary expression of a feeling basic to the very existence of the Spanish people, especially since the fifteenth century: they were what...

When I saw her again later, I revised my first judgment. I fell under the spell of her "Maori charm." Notwithstanding all the intermixture, the Tahitian type was still very pure in her. And then the memory of her ancestor, the great chief Tati, gave her as well as her brother and all her family an appearance of truly imposing grandeur. She had the majestic sculptural form of her race, ample and at the same time gracious. The arms were like the two columns of a temple, simple, straight; and the whole bodily form with the long horizontal line of the shoulder, and the vast height terminating...

La vida de una familia evangélica de un pueblo pequeño, narrada con extrema delicadeza en un lenguaje tan contemporáneo como antiguo. Finalista del Premio de Novela Fundación Medifé Filba «La de Marie es una de las voces más potentes de su generación.» Gabriela Cabezón Cámara Los hermanos trepan a los techos de la casa, juegan en el fondo donde picotean gallinas y se engordan los chanchos que intuyen su muerte en el alimento. Desde lo alto del silo, el padre ve jugar a la prole en el terreno que linda con las vías por donde un tren descarga la semilla de maíz. Se sacrifica a un...

In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humour, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.