Cremation [Paperback]

Along the Mediterranean coastline of Spain, real-estate developers scramble to transform the once pastoral landscape into tourist resorts, nightclubs, and beachfront properties with lavish bars and pools. The booming post-Franco years have left everything up for grabs.An overflowing, mesmeric masterpiece about greed from one of the most remarkable authors on the Spanish scene ( Chirbes imbues the characters with passion and intellect...what emerges is a strong sense of late 20th-century Spanish culture and politics. A mans death stirs thoughts among his family and friends, who are also connected by their experience of Spains economic surge through the early aughts. A challenging excursion from one of Europes most distinctive voices. Utterly convincing in its psychological details, but also memorable for the beauty of its writing and rhythms. Rafael Chirbes is a master of the kind of Spanish literature that shines most brightly in lyrical descriptive passages and powerful metaphors. The works of the late Spanish novelist Rafael Chirbes offer a rebuke to what we might call lifestyle literature. Two of his final novels, Chirbes' novel is a quite powerful book of testimonies and experiences, an indictment of post-Franco Spain that has barreled more or less blindly ahead, damn to many of the consequences.