Antonio Iturbe

The thrilling true story of a Republican tailor who changed his community's life through music.

In the winter of 1930, Joaquina and her husband Mariano—a tailor by trade and a clarinetist in the Zaragoza band—arrive in the rural neighborhood of Las Casetas. He has been hired to take charge of the meager municipal band in a town of working-class people, mostly uneducated farmers. He soon meets those who are to become his band members: peasants with gnarled fingers, blackened nails, and not a single drop of musical instinct. But no one seems willing to make things easy for him; even the small tailor shop he opens fails to take off, leaving Joaquina to work at a bakery and sell sandwiches at the train station to keep them afloat.

Little by little, however, Mariano manages to win the trust of these rough-hewn people, while learning to trust them in return. A firm believer in progressive ideals to modernize the country through education and culture, his passion for music enables him to genuinely improve their lives. Yet standing against his achievements is a healer known as "the witch," determined to drive Mariano and his wife out of the community. A tense tug-of-war unfolds between reason and magic, rejection and desire, all while the threat of war looms inexorably on the horizon.

Música en la oscuridad (Music in the Dark) brings us back to Antonio Iturbe at his very best—an exceptional storyteller who, as he already proved in The Librarian of Auschwitz, possesses a unique gift for rescuing little-known real episodes from our recent past and crafting a deeply moving novel of resilience in times of war.

"Impressive, moving, and heartbreaking." De Telegraaf

"A storyteller with a powerful voice." Antón Castro

"A daring and courageous writer." Adolfo García Ortega

"Antonio Iturbe proves that even in the darkest times, books can offer a glimpse into another world." MustReads

"Superbly weaves together knowledge, research, and storytelling." Marisa Arias, Culturamas

A fascinating journey through the thousand and one stories hidden within La Barceloneta, a love letter to a neighbourhood and, by extension, to the city of Barcelona.

Iturbe is a physicist specialising in neutrinos who, after more than two decades abroad, returns to settle his emotional debts to La Barceloneta, the neighbourhood where he grew up. Strolling through its streets once more, he discovers that, amidst tourist flats, multinational chain stores and the gradual disappearance of the local residents, only traces of his memories remain. With the help of a childhood friend named González, he must piece together his own past, whilst uncovering the fate of some of his contemporaries.

2017 Biblioteca Breve Prize

Three great friends changed the history of aviation. One of them also left an indelible mark on the lives of millions of readers by writing The Little Prince.

France, the 1920s. Only the finest pilots are accepted at Latécoère. Among the chosen few are Jean Mermoz, Henri Guillaumet and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, three heroic aviators who will pioneer the first mail routes along unexplored paths. No distance is too great for them, no mountain too high: the letters must reach their destination. When they land, they face the turbulence of life on the ground in a century torn apart by wars.

A cielo abierto recounts the incredible feats of three great friends who shaped the history of aviation, and is also a tribute to the author of *The Little Prince*, an unforgettable writer who knew how to see reality through the eyes of a child.

Antonio Iturbe has written a gripping novel thanks to the careful balance between fast-paced action and the subtle emotion conveyed by Saint-Exupéry’s view of the world, the perfect characterisation of the protagonists, and the setting—ranging from Parisian salons and New York literary circles to the world that surrounded those legendary aviators. A celebration of the essence of literature in a tale of friendship, impossible dreams, love and passion, and the joy of flying and discovering, from the sky, a beautiful planet full of mysteries.

‘A narrator with tremendous verve.’ Antón Castro.

‘Antonio Iturbe combines the documentary precision of a born journalist with great narrative fluency.’ Sergio Vila-Sanjuán.

‘A daring and courageous writer.’ Adolfo García Ortega

On the black mud of Auschwitz that swallows everything, Fredy Hirsch has secretly set up a school. In a place where books are forbidden, young Dita hides beneath her dress the fragile volumes of the smallest, most hidden and clandestine public library that has ever existed.

Amidst the horror, Dita teaches us a wonderful lesson in courage: she does not give up and never loses her will to live or to read because, even in that terrible extermination camp, ‘opening a book is like boarding a train that takes you on holiday’.

A moving novel based on real events that rescues from oblivion one of the most touching stories of cultural heroism.

Baldo is a well-paid and up-and-coming product assistant at a major advertising agency. One night, his life falls apart and he is forced to return to his home neighbourhood, La Barceloneta. It is there that the protagonist’s nightmares and dreams begin – in which we may, perhaps, see ourselves reflected.

Ladislao González is weighed down by problems at work and in his marriage. That, combined with his insatiable appetite, shapes his dark and irreverent view of the society in which he lives. But Ladislao finally has a stroke of luck: he prints books on toilet roll tubes, and the invention becomes a hit. Rectos torcidos is a fast-paced novel about a poor man, in which the narrator’s sense of humour—sometimes dark, always biting—plays a key role.

El Inspector Cito, detective famoso en todo el mundo por su ingenio y por su afición a la tortilla de patatas, trabaja en el Departamento de Casos Extraños, Misteriosos y Superdifíciles con la ayuda del sargento chino Chin Mi Edo.

Inspector Cito, world-famous for his ingenuity and his love of potato omelets, works in the Department of Strange, Mysterious, and Super-Difficult Cases with the help of his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chin Mi Edo.

A thriller that looks to the future to highlight the challenges of the present. Two teenagers have been kidnapped, supposedly by an eco-terrorist cell that has chosen violence to defend its ideals. They are the daughters of the government's Expansion Councilor, the woman in charge of leading the system's colonization and one of the most powerful people on Mars. To rescue them, Lieutenant Farah—along with her peculiar special operations team—will have to venture beyond the boundaries where civilization reaches: a lawless territory ruled only by a mysterious tsarina, and a haven for all kinds of outcasts who don't fit into the established order.

Inspector Cito, world-famous for his ingenuity and his love of potato omelets, works in the Department of Strange, Mysterious, and Super-Difficult Cases with the help of his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chin Mi Edo.

Inspector Cito, world-famous for his ingenuity and his love of potato omelets, works in the Department of Strange, Mysterious, and Super-Difficult Cases with the help of his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chin Mi Edo.

Inspector Cito, the famous detective from the Central Police Station, is always ready in his office—accompanied by his collection of magnifying glasses and his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chi Mi Edo—to solve the strangest, most mysterious, and super-difficult cases that come their way.

Inspector Cito, the famous detective from the Central Police Station, is always ready in his office—accompanied by his collection of magnifying glasses and his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chi Mi Edo—to solve the strangest, most mysterious, and super-difficult cases that come their way. This time, as they head out to lunch, they hear shouting. Víctor Montano's wig has just been stolen while he was unloading some boxes from his van, and...

Inspector Cito, the famous detective from the Central Police Station, is always ready in his office—accompanied by his magnifying glass collection and his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chi Mi Edo—to solve any strange cases that come their way. Now they must figure out who is entering Mrs. Daniela's house every night...

Inspector Cito, the famous detective from the Central Police Station, is always ready in his office with his collection of magnifying glasses and his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chi Mi Edo, to solve any strange and mysterious cases that come their way. The ill-tempered Captain Trueno informs them that they must immediately locate the whereabouts of Rapunet's mummy.

Inspector Cito, the famous detective from the Central Police Station, is always in his office with his magnifying glass collection alongside his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chi Mi Edo, ready to solve any strange, mysterious, and difficult cases that come their way.

How do you imagine life will be ten years from now? Where will our behavior as a society lead us?

At the age of ten, Farah emigrated to Mars with her grandparents after being orphaned in the great environmental catastrophe that forced humanity to abandon Earth and colonize other planets. In New Tokyo, she became the youngest police lieutenant in the entire Solar System. Nothing was ever handed to her: she was top of her class and outperformed all other candidates in every exam. However, she also holds the record for the most disciplinary files on her service record for breaching protocol. The truth is, Farah doesn't easily accept orders she disagrees with...

That is why her boss considers her to lead a small rapid response team with full authority to handle off-protocol incidents—those abnormal or exceptional situations where even the highest artificial intelligence robots fall short. And so begins her first mission: a homicide case at the V-66 biotechnological research station on Venus.

Inspector Cito, world-famous for his ingenuity and his love of potato omelets, works in the Department of Strange, Mysterious, and Super-Difficult Cases with the help of his Chinese assistant, Sergeant Chin Mi Edo.