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In Diamond Square: A Virago Modern Classic
Merce Rodoreda
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'A small masterpiece' COLM TOIBIN, DAILY TELEGRAPH
'The most beautiful novel published in Spain since the Civil War' GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
'Rodoreda's writing pays such fierce and tender attention to the experience of being alive, and the tempest that ordinary life can be' HELEN OYEYEMI
When we were all alone, and everyone was in bed and the streets empty, he said, you and I will dance a dawn waltz in Diamond Square . . .
At a fiesta in early 1930s Barcelona, a young woman finds herself dancing with a stranger. Before long, they are married and living in small apartment on Diamond Square, where Natalia struggles to keep the family afloat while Joe - a charmer and dreamer - imagines that the rare pigeons he breeds on the roof will one day make their fortune. But the joys and squabbles of everyday life are shattered by the eruption of civil war. While Joe leaves Barcelona to fight the fascists, Natalia and her two children must survive in a city torn apart by violence and hunger - as one by one, the beloved birds fly away.
This devastatingly vivid portrait of a woman caught up in the convulsions of history is widely acclaimed as the most important Catalan novel of the twentieth century.
'An extremely moving love story translated from the Catalan, which reveals much about the Spanish civil war as ordinary, non-political people had to live it' DIANA ATHILL
'The fierce beauty of Rodoreda's writing makes it one of the masterpieces of modern European literature' INDEPENDENT
Read MorePraise for In Diamond Square: A Virago Modern Classic
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A small masterpiece - Daily TelegraphI don't know how many times I have reread the book, including several times in Catalan, with such effort that speaks volumes to my devotion to the novel - Gabriel Garcia MarquezGo along with Natalia on her night out and you'll soon find you'd follow her anywhere. Rodoreda's writing pays such fierce and tender attention to the experience of being alive, and the tempest that ordinary life can be - Helen OyeyemiA translator like this is essential . . . It is one of the few novels about women in wartime narrated by a working-class woman. History is filtered through the eyes of this complex woman, both given to flights of fancy and with her feet firmly on the ground. Here the epic struggle is not in the trenches, but in a young woman's fight to understand love and loss and to survive war and hunger. The fierce beauty of Rodoreda's writing makes it one of the masterpieces of modern European literature. - IndependentAn extremely moving love story translated from the Catalan, which reveals much about the Spanish civil war as ordinary, non-political people had to live it - Diana Athill
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