
Los extraños
Periférica, 2014
Translations
Germany / Berenberg Verlag
Press
“Vicente Valero has written a great book, because he has successfully provided artistic direction to the absence of a complete or reliable history. Everything relies on chasing trails that have almost disappeared, but this is not a liability. On the contrary, the reason for his artistic success is found in this fundamental ellipsis.” José María Pozuelo Yvancos, ABC
“The Strangers has the austere beauty of the best elegies and the mark left by the inevitability of these readings.” J. Ernesto Ayala‐Dip, El País
“An excellent writer. He was right in naturally choosing essential data that rounds out his characters. It is precisely this way of telling the story which gives it the closeness of a chronic without hindering in the quality of the writing.” Ricardo Senabre, El Mundo
Synopsis
(The Strangers) A story of Africanist army members, Second Republic Commanders, professional chess players and dancers, against the backdrop of colonial Africa, Spanish Civil War, exile in France, Ibiza in the seventies.
Definitely one of the most important first Spanish novels in recent years.Whether unfortunate or happy, that is to say, similar or different –according to Tolstoy’s famous definition–, every family have their strange ones: those individuals whom only a handful of news about them are known yet often come up because some mysterious event that have happened to them, their odd jobs or the strength of their unique personality, which makes them distance themselves from the ordinary course of the family. Often elusive faces on the brink of being completely forgotten.
To rescue them from this last frontier and to satisfy an old curiosity –originated, purely and naively, from the disconnected stories heard during childhood– the narrator brings together four of his strangers in this extraordinary book to try to piece together, using a few inherited memories but also venturing into personal research (travels, ocuments, etc.), the trajectory of the lives of each one, their ambitions and failures, and to identify the main reason for their strangeness and, therefore, their estrangement.
MB Authors
- Pepa AGUAR
- Pablo ARANDA
- Juan Luis ARSUAGA
- Manuel ASTUR
- Flavita BANANA
- Joan BARRIL
- Nuria BARRIOS
- María BASTARÓS
- Felipe BENÍTEZ REYES
- Joan-Daniel BEZSONOFF
- BLACKIE BOOKS
- Joana BONET
- Juan BONILLA
- Emilio BUESO
- Bibiana CANDIA
- Leonardo CANO
- Pablo CARBONELL
- Martín CASARIEGO
- Nicolás CASARIEGO
- Paula CIFUENTES
- Juan CUADRA
- Mario CUENCA SANDOVAL
- Malén DENÍS
- Elizabeth DUVAL
- Maria ESCALAS
- Cristina FALLARÁS
- Eneko FERNÁNDEZ
- Laura FERRERO
- Josep Maria FONALLERAS
- Albert FORNS CANAL
- Miguel GALLARDO
- Olivia GALLO
- Xenia GARCÍA
- Ignacio GARCÍA-VALIÑO
- José A. GARRIGA VELA
- David B. GIL
- Santi GIMÉNEZ
- Marcos GIRALT TORRENTE
- Enric GONZÁLEZ
- Ismael GRASA
- Luci GUTIÉRREZ
- Javier GUTIÉRREZ
- Najat El HACHMI
- Alicia KOPF
- Use LAHOZ
- Lucía LIJTMAER
- Shaina Joy MACHLUS
- Adrià MARQUÈS
- Ignacio MARTÍNEZ DE PISóN
- Ramon MAS
- Ana MERINO
- Luna MIGUEL
- Amarna MILLER
- Miquel OBIOLS
- Bruno ORO
- Miqui OTERO
- Anna PACHECO
- Vicenç PAGÈS JORDÀ
- Enric PARDO
- Concepción PEREA
- Juan Manuel DE PRADA
- Jordi PUNTÍ
- Llucia RAMIS
- Antonio J. RODRÍGUEZ
- Félix ROMEO
- Carmen ROMERO
- Xavier RUBERT DE VENTÓS
- Gemma RUIZ
- Juanjo SÁEZ
- Gabriel SALVADÓ
- Màrius SERRA
- Rubén SERRANO
- Ramon SOLSONA
- José Miguel TOMASENA
- David TRUEBA
- Juan VICO
- Enrique VILA-MATAS
- Rosario VILLAJOS
- Rolando VILLAZÓN
- Pedro ZARRALUKI