Death in Spring
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
'Soaringly beautiful, urgent and disturbing... A masterpiece.' Colm Tóibín, from the introduction Death in Spring is a dark and dream-like tale of a teenage boy's coming of age in a remote village in the Catalan mountains; a place cut off from the outside world, where cruel customs are blindly followed, and attempts at rebellion swiftly crushed. When his father dies, he must navigate this oppressive society alone, and learn how to live in a place of crippling conformity. Often seen as an allegory for life under a dictatorship, Death in Spring is a bewitching and unsettling novel about power, exile, and the hope that comes from even the smallest gestures of independence. 'Rodoreda has bedazzled me' Gabriel Garcia Marquez 'Rodoreda's artistry is of the highest order' Diana Athill 'Read it for its beauty, for the way it will surprise and subvert your desires, and as a testament to the human spirit in the face of brutality and willful inhumanity.' Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing 'Utterly extraordinary' Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond 'Dark and beautiful and brilliant' Sarah Moss, author of The Tidal Zone
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Death in Spring is translated from the Catalan, and that's why I bought the book in a terrific bookshop on a recent trip to Barcelona . And while I did recognize some brilliance in the novel and an important theme of struggle against the authoritarians, I found the odd prose (images and events that are far beyond the familiar) nearly impenetrable. Sometimes it make sense, and sometimes it's just weird.
