In the summer of 1936, before the outbreak of the Civil War that plunged Spain into three tears of agony and terror, eight-year-old Moncho is beginning his first day at school. Butterfly's Tongue is about a friendship between the boy and his schoolmaster, born of their shared interest in animal and insect life. In Saxophone in the Mist a young musician discovers the meaning of music and of love in the face of a girl he meets on a foggy night at a fair; while in Carmina the boy listens as an old man relates how a village dog named Tarzan used to frustrate him in his attempts to woo his beloved.
Author Biography
Manuel Rivas was born in Coruna in 1957. He writes in the Galician language of north-west Spain. He worked as a journalist before turning to writing and his novels and short stories have won some of Spain's most prestigious literary awards. Margaret Jull Costa has translated many Spanish and Portugese-language writers. Her translation of Jose Saramago's All the Names won the 2000 Weidenfeld Prize. Jonathan Dunne's translations from the Galician include the poetry of Rosalia de Castro and the short stories of Rafael Dieste and Alfonso Rodriguez Castelao.
