Orquesta
Orchestra | Alfaguara/PRH, 2024
A melody that mixes everything in that valley that dawns with the secrets unveiled on the meadow, as if a great hand had finally opened.
Valdeplata dawns after the summer festival. On the meadow, starling corpses, a torn ticket, a red bicycle, blood on a slipper. The orchestra played all night and children, young and old danced to the same songs, keeping different secrets. They were kept by the Count, an old man who could die at any moment (and with him an ancient world of magic and fear). Also Ventura, a lorry driver who finally took out his sequined dress, or Placeres, dreaming of revenge and forbidden loves. They danced and drank and seemed to be able to understand each other, old lovers, mortal enemies, lost youths. This story is told by the Music, which is inside and outside of each of them and also of you. A music that reminds the living that they are alive and that summons the dead.
«An electric tale written with magic and precision.» Carlos Zanón, author of The Ghost of Johnny Tapia
«One of the best writers of his generation.» Inés MartÃn Rodrigo, Nadal Awarded author
«A palpitating choral account of a summer festivity in a Galician village: [...] an outpouring of talent and empathy.» Rafael Tapaounet, El Periódico
«Unforgettable.» Carmen López, elDiario
«Otero sets out, resolves and fits each piece into a formidable, finely tuned narration. It demands to be read aloud [...], it's a permanent invocation of the living and the dead, with the springs of Pedro Páramo.» BenjamÃn G. Rosado, La Lectura - El Mundo
«Everything is in this verbena: sex, love, corruption, fear, childhood, the dead, magic and tradition. [...] Miqui Otero is one of the best storytellers of urban stories and, from this book, also of rural stories. He weaves it all together marvellously! [...] Read it because you won't stop singing.» Lourdes Lancho, Cadena Ser (radio)
