Manuel Rivas

1 volume ; 20 cm

En el relato que da título a este libro, un joven cuenta su historia de amor después de fallecer en un atraco frustrado. Era capaz de todo pero no tenia valor a decir te quiero. La incomunicación personal en un mundo saturado de información y hechizado por la nueva cacharrería, el gran misterio de las relaciones humanas, es el hilo conductor de ¿Qué me quieres, amor?, con el que Manuel Rivas ha obtenido el Premio de Narrativa Torrente Ballester. Son relatos duros, algunos de una dureza extrema, encaramados al dolor y a la soledad, pero donde emergen la ternura y el humor como los mejore s amuletos y reductos de humanidad. Un viajante, vendedor de lencería espera ansioso al volante la reaparición del hijo huido y recibe la milagrosa ayuda de un héroe del rock. El misterio de la luz de un cuadro, Las lechera de Vermeer, devuelve a un escritor al regazo de la madre. Otro de los relatos, La lengua de las mariposas, trata de la amistad fraternal entre un escolar y un maestro anarquista, que nace de la mutua curiosidad por la vida de los animales, y que es destrozada por la brutalidad de 1936. Según Carlos Casares, este cuento podría figurar en una antología de los mejores relatos de la literatura universal. Después de Un millón de vacas, Los comedores de patatas y En salvaje compañía, con ¿Qué me quieres, amor? Manuel Rivas nos trae historias sustraídas a la apariencia cotidiana de la vida y escritas con la sensación de quien roza con los dedos las vísceras y la piel del mundo.

The protagonist of each of the stories in this new collection is the soul in one of its various guises: a loaf of bread, a parrot, a swarm of bees, and an electric guitar. The stories are a current, simple, ironic, and surprising response to the eternal search for the location of the soul.

The Carpenter's Pencil (O lapis do carpinteiro in Galician) is a book written by the Galician author Manuel Rivas. The story revolves around a young couple, Daniel Da Barca and Marisa Mallo. Their happiness is destroyed when Galicia falls under a Falangist dictatorship. Set in the dark days of the Spanish Civil War, The Carpenter's Pencil charts the linked destinies of a remarkable cast of unique characters. All are bound by the events of the Civil War-the artists and the peasants alike-and all are brought to life, in Rivas's skillful hand, with the power of the carpenter's pencil, a pencil that draws both the measured line and the artist's dazzling vision.

A masterpiece by one of Europe's greatest living writers - a brilliant evocation of the Spanish Civil WarOn 19 August 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruna and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. It is a moment which transforms a young group of friends, who just weeks before had spent their days sunbathing beneath the lighthouse, into a broken generation.Out of this incident during the early months of Spain's tragic civil war, Manuel Rivas weaves a colourful tapestry of stories and unforgettable characters to create a panorama of twentieth-century Spanish history. For it is not only the lives of Hercules the boxer and his friends that are tainted by the unending conflict, but also those of a young washerwoman who sees souls in the clouded river water and the stammering son of a judge who uncovers his father's hidden library.Rivas' depiction of life under Franco's dictatorship reveals violence and betrayal but also irrepressible humour and love, and stands as a testament to the indomitable freedom of the human imagination.Few novels become classics during their authors' lifetimes, but in Books Burn Badly Manuel Rivas has produced an astonishing masterpiece. This is a poet's evocation of his native land and its collective memory. As the singed pages fly away on the breeze, their stories live on in the minds of their readers.

"El libro arranca en una geografía real donde la mirada de la infancia va descubriendo, con una mezcla de miedo, estupor y maravilla, lo que de extraordinario hay en la existencia de la gente corriente."--Page 4 of cover.

" ... presents five of the best current Spanish writers ... [includes] a CD with readings of the texts, practice exercises and ... more than 350 words translated into English and explained in Spanish"--Page 4. of cover.

Vividly realistic short stories that celebrate characters who have the heart to battle adversity and sadness.

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY FICTION (POST C 1945). The Low Voices is a novel about life, it is life itself telling stories, it is the memory of the quiet voices of the people I got to know. The Low Voices draws on a patchwork of memories from Rivas's early life under Franco. There's Rivas's beloved elder sister, Maria, who died young; his mother, the verbivore; his father, a construction worker with vertigo; and a supporting cast of local priests, chatty hairdressers, monstrous carnival effigies, wolf hunters, and a baritone cockerel. The book is full of personal stories such as his first fight, using suitcases for school chairs (a reminder of the grinding poverty that forced many to leave Galicia), and his burgeoning career in journalism, against a background of the unspoken dread of the Spanish Civil War at home, and the wider world as Coca-Cola sets up a factory nearby and news comes in of men landing on the moon.