Sefarad (Spanish Version) (Spanish Edition) [Mass Market Paperback]

Antonio Muñoz Molina (Author)

Book Description

Cada mañana despiertas creyendo ser el mismo de la noche anterior, pero no eres una sola persona y no tienes una sola historia. Ésa es la experiencia que atraviesan los habitantes de una novela de novelas, inquietante y conmovedora: por una enfermedad, por un accidente, por una hermosa historia de amor, por una guerra y, sobre todo, por pertenecer a una minoría perseguida, casi todos ellos se verán obligados a cruzar una peligrosa frontera que los ponga a salvo de la violencia y la irracionalidad que han asolado el siglo XX. Vigorosa denuncia contra toda marginación, Sefarad es una sabia mezcla de personajes reales (Kafka, Primo Levi, Münzenberg) y personajes ficticios, de odios y afectos y de géneros literarios con la que el autor nos propone una sensible aproximación al mundo de los excluidos y a su intensa capacidad de amar.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Punto de Lectura (October 1, 2002)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 8466308482
• ISBN-13: 978-8466308489
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,477,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A resounding "Bravo" for Mr. Molina, October 22, 2009

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LR - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sefarad (Spanish Version) (Spanish Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)

This review is based on the English translation:

Molina's novel grapples with the themes of love, exile, and estrangement without once slipping into sentimentality. The dizzying series of vignettes--the Hungarian Jew in Tangiers, the lonely provincial clerk in an unnamed Spanish town, Munzenberg's harrowing flight from his erstwhile Stalinist allies, Jean Amery's terrible hours inside a Gestapo torture chamber--enable the patient reader (this book is no "thriller") to better understand one of the 20th century's most harrowing motifs: exile. And it is this theme, ultimately, that not only provides the scaffolding for all of Molina's stories, but also establishes the link between the extermination of Europe's Jews and the 1492 Spanish Expulsion.

If I had to point to the novel's flaws, I would say that several characters are somewhat stereotypical: the Spanish officer in the marauding German Army who falls in love with the hounded Jewish woman is a bit trite, as are the descriptions of the shopkeeper's attempts to "deflower" the cloistered nun. These are forgivable lapses, however, and do not diminish the originality of this beautiful novel.