'Soaringly beautiful, urgent and disturbing... A masterpiece.' Colm Tóibín, from the introduction
'Dark and beautiful and brilliant'Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall
Death in Spring is a dark and dream-like tale of a teenage boy's coming of age in a remote village in the Catalan mountains; a place cut off from the outside world, where cruel customs are blindly followed, and attempts at rebellion swiftly crushed. When his father dies, he must navigate this oppressive society alone, and learn how to live in a place of crippling conformity.
Often seen as an allegory for life under a dictatorship, Death in Spring is a bewitching and unsettling novel about power, exile, and the hope that comes from even the smallest gestures of independence.
'Rodoreda has bedazzled me' Gabriel Garcia Marquez
'Rodoreda's artistry is of the highest order' Diana Athill
'Read it for its beauty, for the way it will surprise and subvert your desires, and as a testament to the human spirit in the face of brutality and willful inhumanity.' Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
'Utterly extraordinary' Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241352540
Number of pages: 160
Weight: 124 g
Dimensions: 198 x 130 x 10 mm
Soaringly beautiful, urgent and disturbing... A masterpiece - Colm Tóibín, from the introduction
Mercè Rodoreda's artistry is of the highest order - Diana Athill
Dark and beautiful and brilliant - Sarah Moss
Rodoreda has bedazzled me - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Read it for its beauty, for the way it will surprise and subvert your desires, and as a testament to the human spirit in the face of brutality and willful inhumanity - Jesmyn Ward, author of 'Sing, Unburied, Sing', NPR
Utterly extraordinary - I have had few reading experiences like it - it's as if one is unravelling a terrible yet irresistible secret, the secret of death - Claire-Louise Bennett, author of 'Pond'
The greatest contemporary Catalan novelist and possibly the best Mediterranean woman author since Sappho - David H Rosenthal
A heartbreaking, unforgettable read. One of the most important literary works from the second half of the 20th century - El Cultural
It is a total mystery to me why [Rodoreda] isn't widely worshipped. . . . She's on my list of authors whose works I intend to have read all of before I die. Tremendous, tremendous writer - John Darnielle, author of 'Wolf in White Van'
One of the most radical works from the past century - El Pais
The novel is suspenseful, pushing the reader through the images, memories, and voices that flow within the protagonist's often confused mind as he develops into manhood. Just as the unnamed protagonist must navigate a world of contradictions, the novel reflects Rodoreda's own political, social, and literary exile while speaking of a tyranny that feels almost uncanny in its incantation - Bomb Magazine
Mercè Rodoreda is not just one of the most accomplished post-war Catalan authors; she is also widely considered, notably by Gabriel García Márquez, to be the greatest Spanish writer of the 20th century - Culture Trip
We must be grateful to the Penguin European Writers series, a precious venture in these dark times - John Banville
Death in Spring isn’t what i’d expected; I was shocked by the gore & the lack of humanity. However, I soon realised that Rodoreda’s novella is a blur of metaphors piled on top of each other. A book I cannot say I... More
This is not always an easy read as it takes your mind to places that it doesn't always want to go, and it forces you to think in ways that are alien to us, yet the sheer beauty of the prose, its descriptive... More
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