Of all those convicted, there was only one civilian.
As for Congressman Publio, he was never formally charged. His name disappeared from all the reports, and there was never any trial against him. The newspapers of the period, the legal resolutions, the oral and written media, erased his name from the plot. He does not even appear in the history books or in the vast literature on the matter that was written later. So Publio, the congressman, appears to be a fictional character, as if he had never existed.
… And yet, all you have to do is stroll past a small estate on the outskirts of Almendralejo, near San Marcos, to find an old man who languishes, bitter in his oblivion, and who will tell anyone who wants to listen that on the twenty-third of February of 1981, he almost changed the course of Spain’s history. He lives in fear behind wrought-iron gates and blocked-off windows, waiting for the visit of someone who, sooner or later, will come to settle an old score.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
VÍCTOR DEL ÁRBOL holds a degree in history from the University of Barcelona. He has worked for Catalonia’s police force since 1992. In 2006, he won the Tiflos de Novela Award for The Weight of the Dead. The Sadness of the Samurai is his first novel to be translated into English.
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Copyright © 2011 by Víctor del Árbol
Translation Copyright © 2012 by Mara Faye Lethem
All rights reserved.
Originally published in Spain in 2011 under the title La Tristeza del Samurái by Editorial Alrevés, Barcelona
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Árbol, Víctor del.
[Tristeza del samurai. English]
The sadness of the samurai / Víctor del Árbol ; [translated by Mara Faye Lethem].—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8050-9475-6
1. Spain—History—20th century—Fiction. I. Lethem, Mara. II. Title.
PQ6701.R364T7513 2012
863'.7—dc23 2011039114
eISBN 978-1-4299-5520-1
First U.S. Edition 2012
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
* Spring will laugh again,
which we await by air, land and sea.
Onwards, squadrons, to victory,
that a new day dawns on Spain!
* “The day you marry, two things will happen at once: first your wedding, then my funeral.”
Table of Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Victor del Arbol - The Sadness of the Samurai: A Novel Page 40