Dos taüts negres i dos de blancs

All panellists agreed “Dos taüts negres I dos de blancs” is a highly atmospheric novel which has good potential to work very well in the UK.

Dos taüts negres i dos de blancs is a novel which fictionally reconstructs a crime which took place in Pallars Jussa, in the Catalan Pyrenees in 1943. In a rural community of people working on and living off the land, the brutal murder of a family, a mother, father and two young daughters, shocked everybody who knew them. However the crime became significant due to the fact that it remains unsolved to this day; at the time, despite the brutal nature of the crime, it went largely unreported because of the heavy censorship of the press that strived to maintain the idealistic vision of the “nueva España” and, due to the social and political circumstances at the time, nobody was ever found guilty of the crime. (…)

The structure of the novel is one that is used to great effect. As each character provides an account of the crime or the circumstances relating to it, the plot is moved on a stage. (…)

(…) it is a fascinating insight into how such a major event could be so insignificant to such a large number of people. The novel offers a complete picture of rural life, with its traditions and peculiarities and, as it spans a time of almost 50 years, also explores the changes that both the people and the land underwent in the second half of the 20th century. In terms of translation for an English speaking audience I think it fits fairly well into recent trends for both historically based novels and murder mystery fiction.

The mixture of fact and fiction is used to excellent effect and I would highly recommend this slice of 20th century Pyrenean life. (From the reader report by Jennifer Arnold [3])