{"product_id":"books-burn-badly","title":"Manuel Rivas: Books Burn Badly [2010] hardback","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn 19 August 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruna and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. It is a moment which transforms a young group of friends, who just weeks before had spent their days sunbathing beneath the lighthouse, into a broken generation. \u003cbr\u003eOut of this incident during the early months of Spain's tragic civil war, Manuel Rivas weaves a colourful tapestry of stories and unforgettable characters to create a panorama of twentieth-century Spanish history. For it is not only the lives of Hercules the boxer and his friends that are tainted by the unending conflict, but also those of a young washerwoman who sees souls in the clouded river water and the stammering son of a judge who uncovers his father's hidden library.\u003cbr\u003eRivas' depiction of life under Franco's dictatorship reveals violence and betrayal but also irrepressible humour and love, and stands as a testament to the indomitable freedom of the human imagination.\u003cbr\u003eFew novels become classics during their authors' lifetimes, but in \u003ci\u003eBooks Burn Badly \u003c\/i\u003eManuel Rivas has produced an astonishing masterpiece. This is a poet's evocation of his native land and its collective memory. As the singed pages fly away on the breeze, their stories live on in the minds of their readers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rivas, Manuel \u0026 Dunne, Jonathan","offers":[{"title":"Good","offer_id":47340769083731,"sku":"XG81846551468","price":12.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"New","offer_id":49223818969427,"sku":"9781846551468","price":22.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0616\/4001\/6057\/files\/rivas-manuel-dunne-jonathan-manuel-rivas-books-burn-badly-2010-hardback-58311011631443.jpg?v=1726972873","url":"https:\/\/keatsandchapman.info\/products\/books-burn-badly","provider":"Chapters Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}