The theme of non-communication in human relationships in a world saturated with information is the connecting thread in this collection of stories. The mystery of light in Vermeer's famous painting inspires a writer; a travelling lingerie salesman is helped by a rock musician as he waits for his runaway son; an emigrant describes his experiences in Havana to his nephew; and, a thief, killed while robbing a bank, recounts his love story. Non-communication in a world saturated with information is the connecting theme in this lively collection of stories by the author of "The Carpenter's Pencil". The everyday lives of Rivas' unforgettable characters may be desperate and harsh, filled with pain and solitude, but humour and tenderness always redeem them. "Vermeer's Milkmaid" includes the three stories that comprise "Butterfly's Tongue", upon which Jos- Luis Cuerda's acclaimed film of the same title is based.

Vermeer's Milkmaid : And Other Stories

Literature & Fiction

Manuel Rivas

Contemporary

Random House Pod

It is the summer of 1936, in the early months of the civil war that engulfed Spain. In a prison in the city of Santiago de Compostela, an artist sketches the Portico de la Gloria. He uses a carpenter's pencil. He replaces the faces of the prophets and elders with those of his Republican inmates.

The Carpenter's Pencil

The Harvill Press

I did a lot of bad things, but when I was before the painter I murmured to myself that I was sorry, that I wished I didn't have to, and I don't know what he thought when our eyes met, a moist blaze in the night, but I want to believe he understood, he saw that I was doing it to save him torment. Without further ado, without moving from where I was, I put the pistol to his temple and blew off his head. And then I remembered the pencil. The pencil he carried behind his ear. This pencil...." Manuel Rivas has been heralded as one of the brightest in a new wave of Spanish writers less influenced by magic realism and more by Spanish and European traditions, as well as the unique history of Spain over the past seventy years. The Carpenter's Pencil was a bestseller in Spain and has been published in nine countries.Set in the dark days of the Spanish Civil War, The Carpenter's Pencil charts the linked destinies of Dr. Daniel Da Barca, the Republican who, like his Biblical namesake, cheats death in Franco's prisons, and Herbal, the illiterate Falangist and Da Barca's shadow and tail, and of the unnamed painter with the carpenter's pencil ("He does the posters, he's the one who paints the ideas."), the man who unites them in life and death. And of Marisa Mallo, loved by both Da Barca and Herbal; Pepe Sanchez, the bolero singer; "Genghis Khan," the wrestler; Dombod‡n the Kid, the innocent; Mother Izarne, the nun; and the legend of the estrangement of the two sisters, Life and Death. All are bound by the events of the Civil War-the artists and the peasants alike-and all are rendered, in Rivas's skillful hand, with the power of the carpenter's pencil, a pencil that draws both the measured line and the artist's fanciful vision.

Harvill Press

Vermeer's Milkmaid (Panther)

Galicia: el bonsai atlántico

Aguilar]

LAPIZ DEL CARPINTERO (NSR) (Spanish Edition)

Alfaguara

Que ME Quieres Amor

Ediciones Alfaguara SA, Grupo Santillana

El lápiz del carpintero

FisicalBook

En salvaje compañia

Punto de Lectura

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Books by Manuel Rivas