The richness of the characters created by Stella Sole gives us a wide vision of life in the rearguard during the Spanish Civil War in a city, Barcelona, turned into a standard of the republican Spain. The author transmits magnificently the feelings and struggles to which all of them face up during the difficult years of a war of which she, herself, is an alive testimony.

The novel begins in the previous years of the conflict during which the main character, Vicente Alcoyán, meets Raúl de Mora with whom he will be have a deep friendship. Raúl lives surrounded by a halo of mystery. He moves in the highest spheres in an international level. Before the beginning of the war, he reveals Vicente his intentions, he knows that in Spain it is going to break out a fratricide conflict and when it finish, another of bigger dimensions in Europe. Stars had revealed him so, some time ago and that is why he was preparing the Rescue Net.

When the war breaks out, Raúl sets the Rescue Net in motion which unique and humanitarian purpose is to save human lives of any site even in the front as in the rearguard. Its members are infiltrated everywhere. They form a complex framework, which extends in all the places of the country, being Raúl de Mora who guides his agents tirelessly. Vicente becomes one of the most valuable agents, he devotes himself to this risky work and he puts his life at risk constantly.

In parallel, Stella Sole shows us in all its cruelty, the difficult surviving of the Bárcena's family who have been stripped of all their goods from the beginning of the war. They are obliged to live as outlaws in a city which has turn its back on them and to hidden their true identity due to the prosecution to which part of the civil population is submitted because of its ideology.

The author describes in a masterly way the tensions and reactions that war causes in people, during which the best and the worst of each person flourish proving Stella Sole's deep knowledge of the human being. She goes into the personal evolution of the characters and specially the one of her main character. She opens the door of their inner world and at the same time she shows us the very depths of their feelings. So, it is inevitable the identification of the reader with Vicente, a hero with his human site full of weakness and contradictions to which he faces up in order to carry out his mission above all.

The scenes where the action takes place go from the bombing the civil population suffers, to the activities in the campaign hospitals and the battles in the front and the framework of the Rescue Net, together with the variety of situations that appear in the novel. All of it confers a vivid and intense realism. However, what distinguishes Stella Sole's work is her particular vision of war on the margin of any partisanship and from a point of view mainly humanist. Her central core, the Rescue Net, is an example of love to humanity because it is an organization without any kind of material interest in which its members devote themselves to a hard work without thinking in themselves.

I have played Poncia in this play and I really enjoyed it. We only did a short part out of it but I wanted to do more. I recommend reading this book but if you can perform it!

This book encapsulates three of Lorca's most famous and indeed interesting plays, together with brief reviews, into one volume. Blood Wedding tells the story of a scandal set in Andalucia in the south of Spain. Based on a real story which Lorca discovered in the local press, it examines the rigid social structure of Spain at that period. The imagery is strong, drawing comparisons to the arid landscape of the area and the weak willed men, and emphasising the true romanticism which the 'ill starred lovers' experience. The story is intriguingly similar to Romeo and Juliet and yet very much a story in its own right, due to its social comments, and the fact that, along with 'La Casa de Bernarda Alba' in particular, reveals much about the sexual repression that Lorca himself experienced, given that he was homosexual in a strongly catholic country. 'The House of Bernarda Alba' is also cleverly included in this trilogy, providing valuable comparisons with the other two texts. About a fatherless household, again in Andalucia, it tells how natural passion overrides the social rules which bind the young women in the house, who ultimately rebel against their matriarch, the tyrannical Bernarda Alba. This story is again centralised around the power of our basic instincts, but does not have the same beauty, due to the lack of mutual love between the characters. Where Leonardo in Blood Wedding did what he did for true love, Pepe El Romano is a far more shallow character, looking to have his cake and eat it. Yerma is the third rural tragedy, along similar lines as the other two plays, it is about the frustration of a childless young wife, not permitted to fulfil her natural abilities. Lorca examines here the role of women in the repressive suffocating heat of Spanish culture, and asks some interesting questions, perhaps inspired by his sensitivity to their situation.

Correcting a minor error in the previous review, there are only 5 of these delightful little books that belong back in print, possibly as a single volume (in order):
Nana, Luna, Diva, Lola(initially released as Rock) and Vida, the last and weakest, coming in the wake of the movie version of Diva which kept the basic plot but absolutely none of the spirit of the books.

I love the books and the movie, *but* they are two completely different animals. The books are, as described by Delacorta 'fairytales for adults' while the movie is an incredible journey in which Gorodish becomes the omnicient if not omnipotent mystical guardian of Alba (transformed into a Vietnamese orphan of all things) Jules and recording-shy opera star Cynthia.

Out of the 6 books Delacorta has written starring Serge Gorodish and Alba, this is one of the best. The first few chapters dont make a lot of sense if you havent read Vida, but at about chapter 4 you have trouble putting it down. The reason for Gorodish being sent to prison was hilarious, I thought. Its worth reading the book just for its ending, which Im not going to tell >=D You have to read it yourself.

Good for readers who like to do their reading in the Italian language, but would like to learn more about the authors and the movements they participated in through an English volume. I'm a fan of Fallaci and Ginsburg and learned much about them as women that I had not known from reading their books.

Áspero libro que desnuda al autor y sus miedos y preferencias. Heterogeneo y desigual, al menos hace imprescinble la lectura de dos cuentos, el que da título al libro y el que a mi opinión demuestra la capacidad narrativa de González de Alba: El hombre de Nebraska.
La soledad, lacerante y dolorida se muestra sin recato en un libro de relatos que incluye en ocasiones el lenguaje marginal de los suburbios de Ciudad México.
Es excesivamente pintoresco en las descripciones y en las locaciones que escoje para sus historias, pero esto ayuda al imaginario del lector.
Para culminar su libro, sospecho que por motivos editoriales, incluye traducciones de sonetos de Shakespeare y Michelangelo, que recomendamos a todos los interesados en la poesía y que solo lean en castellano, por la rotundidad de la traducción y el gusto en la selección.
El colofón es un poema del propio Gonzáles de Alba que es como una declaración de principios.
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