A new translation of one of the classics of Spanish literature. This story of lovers, Calisto and Melibea, and their go-between, Celestina, became the first-ever Spanish bestseller after its publication in Burgos in 1499.

A road-trip novel that takes us on a journey of love and escape through the vast and magical landscape of Patagonia, where nothing and no-one are what they seem. Parker is an enigmatic lorry driver who spends his days travelling up and down the infinite roads of a mythical Patagonia: an empty yet wildly beautiful landscape where people are brought together and separated by the shifting, omnipresent wind. Patagonia is a land populated by legends, adventures, and exotic characters, including a journalist on the hunt for Nazi submarines, cannibalistic Trinitarians who have given up eating meat, and a pair of evangelical Bolivian twins who dutifully guard a ghost train. Happiest behind the wheel, or playing his saxophone, Parker crosses these strange plains to escape a mysterious past he left behind long ago. Parker finally finds a sense of direction when he meets Maytén, a strong and beautiful woman who works at a travelling fair. Soon, they are separated, but how will he find her in a land where directions change like the wind? Eduardo Varela creates and reinvents, out of an inhospitable territory where nothing grows, an oceanic and extraordinary landscape. Patagonia Route 203 is an ode to liberty, to movement and to the beauty of creation.

This hand-picked selection from The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories celebrates the best literature to emerge from Spain since the twentieth century. From a poignant personal betrayal to a darkly humorous exchange between two wedding guests, this sparkling collection provides unique cultural insight and literary inspiration for language learners. Includes works from beloved authors such as Javier Marías, Carmen Laforet and more.

A NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY BOOK Good bookshops are questions without answers. They are places that provoke you intellectually, encode riddles, surprise and offer challenges ... A pleasing labyrinth where you can't get lost: that comes later, at home, when you immerse yourself in the books you have bought; lose yourself in new questions, knowing you will find answers. Picking up where the widely praised Bookshops: A Reader's History left off, Against Amazon and Other Essays explores the increasing pressures of Amazon and other new technologies on bookshops and libraries. In essays on these vital social, cultural, and intellectual spaces, Jorge Carrion travels from London to Geneva, from Miami's Little Havana to Argentina, from his own well-loved childhood library to the rosewood shelves of Jules Verne's Nautilus and the innovative spaces that characterize South Korea's bookshop renaissance. Including interviews with writers and librarians-including Alberto Manguel, Iain Sinclair, Luigi Amara, and Han Kang, among others-Against Amazon is equal parts a celebration of books and bookshops, an autobiography of a reader, a travelogue, a love letter-and, most urgently, a manifesto against the corrosive influence of late capitalism.

Lieutenant Mario Conde is suffering from a terrible New Year's Eve hangover. Though it's the middle of a weekend, he is asked to urgently investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rafael Morin, a high-level business manager in the Cuban nomenklatura. Conde remembered Morin from their student days: good-looking, brilliant, a "reliable comrade'' who always got what he wanted, including Tamara the girl Conde was after. But Rafael Morin's exemplary rise from a poor barrio and picture perfect life hide more than one suspicious episode worthy of investigation. While pursuing the case in a decaying but adored Havana, Conde confronts his lost love for Tamara and the dreams and illusions of his generation.

In the rough hill country of rural Catalonia, the Spanish Civil War is over and the villagers live under occupation by the fascist Civil Guard. With his father in jail, facing possible execution as a subversive, and his mother working long hours in a factory, eleven-year-old Andreu is sent to live with his grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins in a farmhouse in a remote valley. His inquisitive, self-taught grandmother encourages him to study, but who will Andreu become? He doesn't want to be a farmhand, or work in a factory, or flee into exile in France like his uncle and aunt. His cousin Nuria invites him to play sex games with her in the woods, but Andreu cannot stop thinking about a young man he sees lying naked in a monastery garden. Confronted on all sides by the need to define himself, Andreu must make a difficult decision. One of the major novels of contemporary Spain, and the inspiration for the first film in the Catalan language to be nominated by Spain for an Academy Award, Black Bread brings to life a rural world of mythical force as it traces with piercing psychological insight, in gorgeous prose, the movements of a boy's psyche as he contemplates growing into an adult. Born in 1933, Emili Teixidor's first novel, Retrato de un asesino de pajaros, was published to tremendous acclaim in 1988, followed by several more which established him as one of Spain's greatest contemporary authors. Teixidor died in 2012.

* On assignment Eduard and Borja check out an exclusive meditation centre in the ritziest part of Barcelona, only to discover the director murdered, whacked in the head with a statuette of the Buddha. The violent death of a neighbour - who happens to be a CIA agent - simultaneously drags them into an international conspiracy complicated by Borja's attempt to smuggle a priceless Assyrian figurine, the 'Lioness of Baghdad'.

These Catalan plays can perhaps best be seen in contrast to the British tradition of 'state of the nation' and 'in yer face' playwrighting. The plays are somewhat enigmatic and even elliptical. They represent elements of a more 'European' less 'UK' playwrighting style with echoes of early Pinter, maybe David Mercer. There is just a hint of Mark Ravenhill/Sarah Kane but any potential violence is purely implied.The Sales Complete is an apparently non-political work concerned with three characters involved in the selling and buying of an apartment - solitary souls who are lost in the desert of the modern world, seeking an arm to cling on to so that they may be saved. It has a social context but this is subservient to the characters' stilted emotional interaction. A collision between the personal and the political; a past affair that might just rekindle and present corruption in 'the party'. Can he persuade her not to cause trouble for the party leadership or will she ignore the feelings she still has for him to bring the leadership down? "Black Beach" is more naturalistic but even here we are not really told exactly what the politics of 'the party' is.

Civilian control of the armed forces is crucial for any country hoping to achieve a successful democratic transition. In this remarkable book, Narcis Serra, Spanish Minister of Defence between 1982 and 1991, explains the steps necessary to reduce the powers of armed forces during the process of a democratic transition. Spain's military reform proved a fundamental and necessary element for the consolidation of Spanish democracy and is often viewed as a paradigm case for the transition to democracy. Drawing on this example, Serra outlines a simple model of the process and conditions necessary to any democratic military reform. He argues that progress in military transition must include legal and institutional reforms, changes to the military career structure and doctrine, and control of conflict levels.

Cuban writer Ivan Cardenas Maturell meets a mysterious foreigner on a Havana beach who is always in the company of two Russian wolfhounds. Ivan quickly names him "the man who loved dogs". The man eventually confesses that he is actually Ramon Mercader, the man who killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940, and that he is now living in a secret exile in Cuba after being released from jail in Mexico. Moving seamlessly between Ivan's life in Cuba, Mercader's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Leonardo Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet. It is the story of revolutions fought and betrayed, the ways in which men's political convictions are continually tested and manipulated, and a powerful critique of the role of fear in consolidating political power.

"A scathing satire of Spanish society, hilarious dialogue, all beautifully dressed up as a crime novel."--"Krimi-Couch"

"A first novel that's spread like wildfire by word of mouth."--"El Avui"

"Teresa Solana is great proof of the vitality of the roman noir in Catalan. . . . A wonderfully ironic hymn to the city of Barcelona."--"Diari de Balears"

Another day in Barcelona, another slimy politician's wife is suspected of infidelity. Lluis Font discovers a portrait of his wife in an exhibition that leads him to conclude he is being cuckolded by the artist. Concerned only about the potential political fallout, he hires twins Eduard and Pep, private detectives with a supposed knack for helping the wealthy with their "dirty laundry." Their office is adorned with false doors leading to nonexistent private rooms, a mysterious secretary who is always away, and a broken laptop computer picked up on the street. The case turns ugly when Font's wife is found poisoned by a "marron glace "from a box of sweets delivered anonymously.

This is a deftly plotted, bitingly funny mystery novel. A satire of Catalan politics and a fascinating insight into the life and habits of Barcelona's inhabitants, diurnal and nocturnal.

Teresa Solana lives in Barcelona. Born in 1962, she studied philosophy and worked as a literary translator and essayist. She has written several novels kept quietly in her drawer. "A Not So Perfect Crime," her first published title, won the 2007 Brigada 21 Prize for the best Catalan mystery novel.

A writer is murdered at the Ritz on the night she wins an important literary prize, battered to death with the trophy she has just won. A satire of the Catalan literary scene dressed up as a hilarious murder mystery

Intertwining journalistic precision with the casual tone of joyful conversation, WENLING'S brings together friendship, gender and migration. A female space par excellence, Wenling's nail salon becomes the crossroad for a myriad of women's stories. From the unique perspective of a female documentary producer, we learn about the history of nail salons in the US and Europe, migration waves from the East to the West and gender relationships across cultures.Originally from China, Wenling arrived in Barcelona looking for a better life. She was six months pregnant at the time. With no knowledge of the local languages, she managed to open a salon. Our unnamed narrator is one of Wenling's frequent customers. As time passes by, a friendship grows between the two women. Through their conversations, Wenling's story unfolds at the salon, where we also discover the many similarities amongst women of different generations and cultures. Gemma Ruiz Pala immerses the reader in a story of gender and migration through an uncompromising, lighthearted narrative.

A brutally mutilated body is discovered washed up in the bay of Havana. The body of Miguel Forcade Mier, head smashed in by a baseball bat, genitals cut off by a dull knife. Forcade, once an official in the Cuban government responsible for the confiscation of the belongings of the bourgeoisie fleeing the revolution, was an exile in Miami. Had he really returned to Havana just to visit his ailing father? Conde immerses himself in the dark history of expropriations of works of art, paintings that have vanished without trace, corrupt civil servants and old families that lost much, but not everything. Here is the disillusion of Padura's generation, many of them veterans of the war in Angola, dealing with the catastrophe that followed the collapse of Russian aide in the 1990's and now discovering the corruption of those that preceded them. Yet a eulogy of Cuba, its life of music, sex and the great friendships of those who elected to stay and fight for survival.

"The finest crime-fiction writer in the Spanish language...""--The London Times""Full of atmosphere and descriptions to savour, this is as much a life-affirming tribute to Havana as a fine novel of death and detection.""--The Independent""Police work is not merely a vocation but a metaphor for a futile yearning to solve the island's deepest crimes and misdemeanours."--"Times Literary Supplement"

Mario Conde has retired from the police force and makes a living trading in antique books. Havana is now flooded with dollars, populated by pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other hunters of the night. In the book collection of a rich Cuban who fled after the fall of Batista, Conde discovers an article about Violeta del Rio, a beautiful bolero singer of the 1950s who disappeared mysteriously. A murder soon follows. This is a crime story set in today's darker Cuba, but it is also an evocation of the Havana of Batista, the city of a hundred night clubs where the paths of Marlon Brando and Meyer Lansky crossed.

Probably Leonardo Padura's best book, "Havana Fever" is many things: a suspenseful crime novel, a cruel family saga, and an ode to literature and his beloved, ravaged island.

The renowned French philosopher's "ode to love's power to unite in the face of eternity, and its optimism in the face of pain" (Publishers Weekly). In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a mere variant of desire and hedonism, Alain Badiou believes that love is under threat. Taking to heart Rimbaud's famous line "love needs reinventing," In Praise of Love is the celebrated French intellectual's passionate treatise in defense of love. For Badiou, love is an existential project, a constantly unfolding quest for truth. This quest begins with the chance encounter, an event that forever changes two individuals, challenging them "to see the world from the point of view of two rather than one." This, Badiou believes, is love's most essential transforming power. Through thought-provoking dialogue edited from a conversation between Badiou and Truong, a vibrant cast of thinkers are invoked: Kierkegaard, Plato, de Beauvoir, Proust, and more, create a new narrative of love in the face of twenty-first-century modernity. Moving, zealous, and wise, Badiou's "paean to the anticapitalist, antiessentialist, unifying power of love" urges us not to fear it but to see it as a magnificent undertaking that compels us to explore others and to move away from an obsession with ourselves (Publishers Weekly). "Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love." -Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless

Civilian control of the armed forces is crucial for any country hoping to achieve a successful democratic transition. In this remarkable book, Narcis Serra, Spanish Minister of Defence between 1982 and 1991, explains the steps necessary to reduce the powers of armed forces during the process of a democratic transition. Spain's military reform proved a fundamental and necessary element for the consolidation of Spanish democracy and is often viewed as a paradigm case for the transition to democracy. Drawing on this example, Serra outlines a simple model of the process and conditions necessary to any democratic military reform. He argues that progress in military transition must include legal and institutional reforms, changes to the military career structure and doctrine, and control of conflict levels.

This exciting collection celebrates the richness and variety of the Spanish short story, from the nineteenth century to the present day. Featuring over fifty stories selected by revered translator Margaret Jull Costa, it blends old favourites and hidden gems - many of which have never before been translated into English - and introduces readers to surprising new voices as well as giants of Spanish literary culture, from Emilia Pardo Bazan and Leopoldo Alas, through Merce Rodoreda and Manuel Rivas, to Ana Maria Matute and Javier Marias. Brimming with romance, horror, history, farce, strangeness and beauty, and showcasing alluring hairdressers, war defectors, vampiric mothers, and talismanic mandrake roots, the daring and entertaining assortment of tales in The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories will be a treasure trove for readers.

In A Cock-Eyed Comedy, Father Trennes is like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, a spirit of the age moving through several centuries of Spain's history. His most recent incarnation is as an Opus Dei religious leader in present-day Spain, whose conformity Goytisolo delightfully savages. A cast of real people and invented characters, including Roland Barthes, Jean Genet, and Manuel Puig, are mixed up in a literary and historical melting pot. A Cock-Eyed Comedy is a transgressive dark comedy with a significant message about religion and sexuality. Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Juan Rulfo Award for Literature. His most recent books are State of Siege, The Garden of Secrets, and Landscapes of War,

On August 6 th 1989 , the day on which the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration, the body of a strangled transvestite is discovered in the humid undergrowth of the Havana Woods. He is wearing a beautiful red evening dress and the red ribbon with which he was asphyxiated is still round his neck. To the consternation of Lieutenant Mario Conde, in charge of the investigation, the victim turns out to be Alexis Arayan, the son of a highly respected diplomat. His investigation begins with a visit to the home of the 'disgraced' dramatist, Alberto Marques, with whom the murdered youth was living. Marques, a man of letters and a former giant of the Cuban theatre, helps Conde solve the crime. In the baking heat of the Havana summer, Conde also unveils a dark, turbulent world of Cubans who live without dreaming of exile, grappling with food shortages and wounds from the Angolan war.

Received wide acclaim in original Spanish publication. Finalist for the 2013 Premio Anagrama de Ensayo [Anagrama Award for Essays]