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by Sebastia Alzamora (author), Martha Tennent & Maruxa Relaño (translators)
A multi-genre gothic novel of the horrific early days of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, perfect for fans of Roberto Bolano and Mario Vargas Llosa.
It is 1936, and Barcelona burns as the Spanish Civil War takes over. The city is a bloodbath. Yet in all this death, the murders of a Marist monk and a young boy, drained of their blood, are strange enough to catch a police inspector's attention. His quest for justice is complicated by the politics, dangers, and espionage of daily life in a war zone. The Marist brothers of the murdered monk are being persecuted; meanwhile, a convent of Capuchin nuns hides in plain sight, trading favors with the military police to stay alive. In their midst is a thirteen-year-old novice who stumbles into the clutches of the murderer. Can she escape in this city of no happy endings?
Narrated by a vampire who thrives in the havoc of the war, this stunning novel, inspired by the true story of a massacre in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, is a gothic reflection on the nature of monsters, in all their human forms.
Winner of the Sant Jordi Prize for Catalan Literature
"Starred Review. Extraordinary... Alzamora deftly balances a swiftly moving, multithreaded plot set firmly in a historical context with a transcendent, nearly timeless exploration of the dark, violent nature of humanity and the vain search for God's mercy, and, in doing so, creatively fulfills the challenge of reinventing gothic horror for a modern age." - Publishers Weekly
"If you've ever wondered what it's like to feel simultaneously bored and nauseous, this is the book for you." - Kirkus
"A sepulchral Gothic thriller of serious and mesmerizing beauty, Blood Crime depicts a world on the edge of the abyss with a terrifying gentleness." - Actes Sud (France)
"A daring effort to make the impossible connection between vampires and the Spanish Civil War ... Alzamora portrays anew the apocalyptic beginnings of the National Uprising, bringing together several plots at a thrilling cinematic pace." - Reading Now (Spain), Book of the Week
"A complex novel that presents a dark, seldom seen portrait of Spanish Republicans ... An unclassifiable novel that requires time for reflection, and a second reading to fully grasp." - Le Salon Littéraire (France)
"Has no contemporary narrative equivalent ... An extraordinary discovery." - Pere Gimferrer
This information about Blood Crime was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sebastià Alzamora i Martín was born in Mallorca in 1972 and graduated from the Universitat de les Illes Balears with a degree in Catalan philology. He first rose to prominence as a poet with a collection called Rafel, which he published in 1994. Since that time, he has written three other volumes of poetry and five novels. He has been awarded numerous prizes for both his fiction and his poetry, including the prestigious Sant Jordi Prize for Blood Crime. He is the editorial director of the Catalan magazine Cultura as well as a regular columnist for various newspapers, including Avui and Ara. He lives in Majorca.
Martha Tennent & Maruxa Relaño are a mother-daughter team of English-language translators, working primarily from Catalan and Spanish. Martha Tennent has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for her translation of The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda. Maruxa Relaño was a translation editor for The Wall Street Journal and has written about immigration, local politics, and the Latino community for several US publications, including the New York Daily News, New York Magazine, and Newsday. They currently live in Barcelona.
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