Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
The Anatomy of a Moment, Paperback / softback Book

The Anatomy of a Moment Paperback / softback

Paperback / softback

Less than 10 available - usually despatched within 24 hours

Description

_______________'Richly imagined, suspenseful and surprisingly poignant ... a reminder of how Spanish history might have taken a dramatically different turn' - Financial Times'Persuasive, brilliant and absorbing' - Economist'Cercas is a master storyteller' - Independent_______________A suspenseful, dramatic novel by the author of Soldiers of Salamis, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanIn February 1981, just as Spain was finally leaving Franco's dictatorship and during the first democratic vote in parliament for a new prime minister, Colonel Tejero and a band of right-wing soldiers burst into the Spanish parliament and began firing shots.

Only three members of Congress defied the incursion and did not dive for cover: Adolfo Suarez, the then-outgoing prime minister, who had steered the country away from the Franco era; Guttierez Mellado, a conservative general who had loyally served democracy; and Santiago Carillo, the head of the Communist Party, which had just been legalised. In The Anatomy of a Moment, Cercas examines a key moment in Spanish history, just as he did so successfully in his Spanish Civil War novel, Soldiers of Salamis.

This is the only coup ever to have been caught on film as it was happening, which, as Cercas says, 'guaranteed both its reality and its unreality'.

Every February a few seconds of the video are shown again and Spaniards congratulate themselves for standing up for democracy, but Cercas says that things were very quiet that afternoon and evening while all over Spain people stayed inside waiting for the coup to be defeated ... or to triumph. _______________'A brilliant reconfiguring of a key event in contemporary European history.

Audacious and wholly fascinating' - William Boyd'An almost Shakespearean account of soldiers, politicians, mixed motives and the lust for power' - Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph'A mesmerising achievement' - Literary Review

Information

Other Formats

Save 0%

£10.99

£10.95

Less than 10 available - usually despatched within 24 hours
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information