Luis Leante

Following the discovery of a woman’s mummified body in a flat in Collioure, in the south of France, a writer investigates some extraordinary and little-documented events that occurred in Madrid and colonial Guinea in the 1930s and 40s: the night of 14 November 1932, Civil Guard Sergeant a Castilla slit the Guinean Governor’s throat while he visited the island of Annobón, where Castilla had founded a utopian community governed by the principles of the Republic. 

When Pedraza the lawyer crosses his path, both of their lives experience a rapid succession of adversities that drag everyone in. Jealousy, madness, lies and obsessions are all present in a love triangle in which fear and love are often intermingled.

A fascinating historical novel that invites the reader to reflect on the difficulty of achieving an authentic version of the past, which is always tainted by subjectivity and the Manichaeism that tends to simplify history.