About this ebook
In this “beautifully wrought” novel set in Franco-era Spain, a university student stumbles into a decades-old mystery (New York magazine).
It’s the late sixties, the last dark years of Franco’s dictatorship. Minaya, a university student in Madrid, is caught up in the student protests and the police are after him. He moves to his uncle Manuel’s country estate in the small town of Mágina to write his thesis on an old friend of his uncle, an obscure republican poet named Jacinto Solana.
The country house is full of traces of the poet—notes, photographs, journals—and Minaya soon discovers that, thirty years earlier, during the Spanish Civil War, both his uncle and Solana were in love with the same woman, the beautiful, unsettling Mariana. Engaged to Manuel, she was shot in the attic of the house on her wedding night. With the aid of Inés, a maid, Minaya begins to search for Solana’s lost masterpiece, a novel called Beatus Ille. Looking for a book, he unravels a crime.
One of Spain’s most celebrated literary figures, the author of Sepharad and In the Night of Time weaves a “rapturously gothic” tale that is both a novel of ideas and an intricately plotted mystery (The New York Sun).
“A brilliant novel by an important writer unafraid of ideas, emotions and genuine beauty.” —Los Angeles Times
“Already a contemporary classic, this work . . . is an enigmatic gem in the very best metafiction tradition.” —Library Journal
It’s the late sixties, the last dark years of Franco’s dictatorship. Minaya, a university student in Madrid, is caught up in the student protests and the police are after him. He moves to his uncle Manuel’s country estate in the small town of Mágina to write his thesis on an old friend of his uncle, an obscure republican poet named Jacinto Solana.
The country house is full of traces of the poet—notes, photographs, journals—and Minaya soon discovers that, thirty years earlier, during the Spanish Civil War, both his uncle and Solana were in love with the same woman, the beautiful, unsettling Mariana. Engaged to Manuel, she was shot in the attic of the house on her wedding night. With the aid of Inés, a maid, Minaya begins to search for Solana’s lost masterpiece, a novel called Beatus Ille. Looking for a book, he unravels a crime.
One of Spain’s most celebrated literary figures, the author of Sepharad and In the Night of Time weaves a “rapturously gothic” tale that is both a novel of ideas and an intricately plotted mystery (The New York Sun).
“A brilliant novel by an important writer unafraid of ideas, emotions and genuine beauty.” —Los Angeles Times
“Already a contemporary classic, this work . . . is an enigmatic gem in the very best metafiction tradition.” —Library Journal
About the author
Antonio Muñoz Molina is the author of more than a dozen novels, among them Sepharad, A Manuscript of Ashes, and In Her Absence. He has been awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society and the Prince of Asturias Award, among many others. Muñoz Molina lives in Madrid and New York City.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
