
La mestra i la Bèstia / The Teacher and the Beast
Novel , 2023
Anagrama
Pages: 352
The story of a special person, a woman who grows up in the silence of the Franco regime and opens herself up to the world in a mountain village where the wounds of the past still fester.
In September 1962, a young, uncertain teacher with limited verbal communication skills arrives at her first job in a school in the Pyrenees. She fulfills her desires: to have a town, a job and a house from where she can watch the snow fall. She leaves behind a childhood marked by the mysterious activities of her father and an atypical upbringing under a mother torn between the irresistible impulse to shield her daughter from the mantras of the Regime and the fear of excessively isolating her from the prevailing normality.
The candid Severina, unaware of the social mores of a rural community and the marks left by history on its inhabitants, will fit together the pieces that unite her with the collective past thanks to Justa's common sense and the support of a fascinating man with whom she will live a deliciously one-sided passion. She will also discover to her horror that despite her discretion and amiability the community will not leave her alone.
“Superlative.” La Lectura, El Mundo
“A novel that, thanks to its thoroughness, concision, bitterness, eloquence and enormous readability, euphorically passes the litmus test of finding another way to recount how a family is connected to historical memory [...]. A talented amalgamation of sad lucidity and narrative playfulness.” El País