Black Bread

Description

In the rough hill country of rural Catalonia, the Spanish Civil War is over and the villagers live under occupation by the fascist Civil Guard. With his father in jail, facing possible execution as a subversive, and his mother working long hours in a factory, eleven-year-old Andreu is sent to live with his grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins in a farmhouse in a remote valley. His inquisitive, self-taught grandmother encourages him to study, but who will Andreu become? He doesnt want to be a farmhand, or work in a factory, or flee into exile in France like his uncle and aunt. His cousin Nria invites him to play sex games with her in the woods, but Andreu cannot stop thinking about a young man he sees lying naked in a monastery garden.Confronted on all sides by the need to define himself, Andreu must make a difficult decision. One of the major novels of contemporary Spain, and the inspiration for the first film in the Catalan language to be nominated by Spain for an Academy Award,BlackBreadbrings to life a rural world of mythical force as it traces with piercing psychological insight, in gorgeous prose, the movements of a boys psyche as he contemplates growing into an adult.PRAISE FORBLACK BREADThis richly written saga, set in the Catalan countryside in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, 11-year-old Andreu has gone to live with his grandparents while his father awaits execution for reputedly subversive activities. Initially, Andreu enjoys romping with cousins Quirze and Nriathe old plumtree is their base of operationsand Teixidors details of family, school, and country life are homey and surprisingly gratifying. The story gets darker and increasingly interesting as we learn more about Andreus parents, with Andreu reflecting bitterly on his meek mothers single-minded obsession with saving his off-balance father and proclaiming, Love burns. Love destroys. Love kills. His confusion is compounded when hes distracted from Nrias teasing sex games by the sight of a young man stretched out naked in a monastery garden. Eventually, Andreu must leave his own garden for the wider world, convinced that hes a monster. VERDICT: A taut and tender coming-of-age story thats both resonant and intriguingly different.Library JournalTeixidors rich writing style adds to the lush rural feel of the novel, evoking a setting like that of Marcel Pagnols novels while incorporating a great deal of complex political nuance.Publishers WeeklyBlack Breadfrequently alludes to memorys instability, its wavering between continuity and transience: What images and words trigger memories to reappear? Why do some individuals stay in our mind longer than others? PerhapsBlack Breads most distinctive achievement is the acute awareness of both the harsh reality of [the protagonists] time and the somnolence of a life fading away before ones eyes, beyond his control A bold, commendable effort to expose a troubling legacy from the past. Music & LiteratureBlack Bread builds slowly, through the accrued detail of seemingly disconnected scenes or, lets say, a string of scenes where the narrative throughline is not immediately apparent to the reader.Ron Hogan,BeatriceThe true power ofBlack Breadlies in the authors ability to capture the nuances of adolescent experience in a time of turmoil and change. A cast of memorable characters, interpreted through the memories of his sensitive young narrator allow Teixidor to create a world with true emotional depth. Although this novel only covers about three years of Andreus life, it has an epic feel.Joseph Schreiber,Numro CinqTeixidors linguistic brushstrokes paint everything we need in order to see ourselves just as the speaker finally does himself: that we are, in the end, always somehow at war within ourselves.World Literature TodayAn intense, dazzling work that evokes the hard post-Civil War years in the valleys of rural Catalonia through the eyes of a boy who belongs to the world of the wars losers One of the best novels of recent years.La Vanguardia(Barcelona)Teixidors iron command of narrative technique allows the voices of his unforgettable characters to reach us across the gulf of their hopes and miseries.El Pas(Madrid)Teixidor achieved an absolute best-seller withBlack Bread, a novel written in a very rich style, full of subtleties, and appealing to a wide range of readers.El Peridico(Barcelona)Exile, repression, cold and hunger in a rural milieu are the background toBlack Bread. Teixidor pioneers a new approach to the literary presentation of historical memory that is full of subtle distinctions and avoids the facile dualisms of good and evil.ABC(Madrid)The name of Emili Teixidor is now inseparable fromBlack Bread.La Nueva Espaa