Antonio Buero Vallejo

This play describes a teaching centre for young people who are blind, where a false unity is maintained by a mixture of fear, coercion and diversion and where education is seen as to play a part in the regime's ideological apparatus and to encourage the acceptance of pleasant and reassuring myths.

xi, 191 p. : 22 cm

Written in 1964, then banned and only staged in Spain 12 years later after Franco's death. Buero's powerful play, La doble historia del Doctor Valmy, tackles the controversial question of political torture. Daniel Barnes is a family man who works as a member of the Political Police in an imaginary country called Surelia. Ordered by his superior to torture a political prisoner, Daniel becomes sexually impotent. After a visit to Dr Valmy, Daniel discovers that his condition is a self-punishment for what he has done to the prisoner. Mary, Daniel's wife, gradually becomes aware of the secrets of her husband's grisly trade and attempts to persuade him to leave the police service, with devastating results. The play focuses not on the victim but on the torturer and the consequences of his actions for his family, marriage and personal relations. This is a new edition of one of Buero's most successful and most provocative texts and contains a detailed and wide-ranging introduction, bibliography, notes and a plot summary in English. A helpful vocabulary and variety of work topics makes this an ideal edition for sixth form and undergraduate students.