You could be forgiven for reading this novel and thinking it is a historical account of an incident in the Spanish Civil War. Written by the Salamanca university lecturer of my Spanish tutor, it is a story about war which seems so unbelievable that it cannot be true. Cercas puts this very sentiment into the mouth of one of his characters:
‘Did you know lots of people thought it was a lie?…’
‘Doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it sounds like fiction.’
‘All wars are full of stories that sound like fiction.’
A man escapes a firing squad, Republicans are shooting Nationalists at the end of the war. He escapes into a forest, thinking he is safe. But there he runs into a militiaman, who inexplicably turns and walks away instead of shooting him. The escaped man, a fascist, becomes a national hero and the soldier disappears into history. This is their story. Cercas examines memory and forgetting, winners and losers in war. Who is the hero, the escaped man, or the soldier who let him live? I have read it three times, and each time I get more from it. Unmissable.
5 to remember
el soldado – soldier
la adivinanza – riddle
increible – unbelievable
verdadero/a – true
la ficción – fiction