Un largo silencio

A Long Silence / Edicions de Ponent, 2006


"My father is a hero. His feat has been survival, surviving to fall in love with my mother, so that my brother and I could exist, surviving to make friends, to read, to laugh… My father spent 40 years as silent as a tomb, trying not to say a single word louder than any other. All those years, I believed he was hiding from life. When he finally opened his mouth, it was to tell the same story, over and over again. This is the story that my father told time and time, a story made of fragments and remnants, of pieces that didn’t fit together; I know this is a true story and I’m going to try and tell it, in order to give my father a voice. A voice that tells a piece of history that is increasingly forgotten, while those who lived through it will never forget. My father was one of them and this book is dedicated to him, to repay him for the gift he gave me, by teaching me his life and the dignity and honour he hid."

This book is a homage by Gallardo to his father interlaced with his cartoons and texts from his own father, depicting his memories of the Spanish Civil War, in which he fought.