Mercè Rodoreda

Natalia, a pretty shop girl from the working-class quarter of Gracia, is hesitant when a stranger asks her to dance at the fiesta in Diamond Square. But Joe is charming and forceful, and she takes his hand. They marry and soon have two children; for Natalia it is an awakening, both good and bad. When Joe decides to breed pigeons, the birds delight his son and daughter - and infuriate his wife. Then the Spanish Civil War erupts; Natalia remains in Barcelona, struggling to feed her family, while Joe goes to fight the fascists, and one by one his beloved birds fly away...

"Death in Spring tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless town--burying the dead in trees after filling their mouths with cement to prevent their soul from escaping, or sending a man to swim in the river that courses underneath the town--through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy who must come to terms with the rhyme and reason of this ritual violence, and with his wild, child-like, and teenaged stepmother, who becomes his playmate"--

Contains thirty short fiction stories selected from three previously published collections in which Mercè Rodoreda explores the lives of women stuck between modernity and tradition.

"Despite its title, there is little of war and much of the fantastic in this coming-of-age story, which was the last novel Mercè Rodoreda published during her lifetime. We first meet its young protagonist, Adrià Guinart, as he is leaving Barcelona out of boredom and a thirst for freedom, embarking on a long journey through the backwaters of a rural land, accompanied by the interminable, distant rumblings of an indefinable war. In vignette-like chapters and a narrative style imbued with the fantastic, Guinart meets with numerous adventures and peculiar characters who offer him a surrealistic view of an impoverished, war-ravaged society and shape his perception of his place in the world"--Page 4 of cover.

Aquest estoig conté, en dos volums, l'obra narrativa de maduresa de Mercè Rodoreda, que comprèn les novel·les i els contes que l'autora va escriure a partir de l'exili i fins a la seva mort.El primer volum conté les novel·les Aloma, La plaça del Diamant, El carrer de les Camèlies, Jardí vora el mar, Mirall trencat i Quanta, quanta guerra. El segon aplega els seus llibres de contes 22 contes, La meva Cristina i altres contes, Semblava de seda i altres contes i Viatges i flors, a més dels escrits literaris dels últims anys: alguns textos autobiogràfics, els dos únics contes escrits en els últims anys (1980-1982) i les dues novel·les inacabades que va deixar: La mort i la primavera i Isabel i Maria. Aquesta edició, a cura de Carme Arnau i avalada per la Fundació Mercè Rodoreda, estableix el text definitiu de cada obra, tal com l'autora el va voler en última instància.Aquests dos primers volums de les obres completes de Mercè Rodoreda es completaran a partir de 2009 amb l'obra de joventut, la poesia i el teatre. --