Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885) is considered the founder of modern Galician literature. She wrote three major books of poetry: two in Galician, Galician Songs and New Leaves, and one in Spanish, On the Banks of the Sar. Nourished by the popular songs the author heard around her, Galician Songs was first published in 1863 and dedicated on 17 May, the date that a hundred years later, in 1963, would become and has remained Galician Literature Day, when the work of a particular Galician author is celebrated. Galician Songs marks the first full publication of any of Rosalía de Castro's books of poetry in English and is accompanied by a translator's introduction that argues for the importance and contemporaneity of the author's work and poetics, not just in Galician, but in English.

Galician Songs (Galician Classics# 4)

Literature & Fiction

Castro, Rosalía de

Poetry

Small Stations Press

New Leaves (Galician Classics)

Fools for Christ are men and women who live outside the social norms, whose behavior is considered shocking or unusual. But in a time of dictatorship, when these stories were first published, “foolish” behavior can be a form of protest. So, a child who is unable to access the forbidden fruits of a pastry shop, out of protest, refuses to eat the chickpeas that are offered to him; another child, who cannot pay for a ride on the merry-go-round, slips under the tarpaulin when the ride is not working and creates his own ride out of his own fantasy. A fat child, who is bullied and made fun of by the town’s more respectable children, makes friends with a paschal lamb, which then, to his shock and horror, is served up for dinner. Another boy takes to setting the corner of a whitewashed house on fire with his coloring pencils. It is the children who throw away their toys or who torture animals that are somehow considered normal. The Foolish Children contains twenty-one micro-fiction stories by Ana María Matute in Spanish and in English translation. The original was first published in Spain during Franco’s dictatorship. It was rated by the Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela as “the most important work written in Spanish by a woman since the Countess Emilia Pardo Bazán.” Ana María Matute, along with Camilo José Cela and Miguel Delibes, is widely considered one of Spain’s most distinguished writers of fiction in the twentieth century. She was awarded the National Prize for Literature twice and, in 2010, received the Spanish-speaking world’s most prestigious literary award, the Cervantes.

The Foolish Children (9)

Matute, Ana María

Short Stories & Anthologies

Einés Andrade is a doctoral student whose studies center on the figure of the French philosopher René Descartes. But when she is only seven or eight, she is sent to the attic for calling her great-grandmother a monkey, and there she discovers a hutch, a large chest, from which emanate the scents of various herbs and fruits. She also discovers private papers belonging to Queen Christina of Sweden and a certain Hélène Jans, a herbalist and healer of Amsterdam. Digging deeper, she discovers that the two women shared a common passion. In 1649, Christina of Sweden invited Descartes to her court to give her lessons in philosophy, but he was reputed to have caught pneumonia and died in February, 1650. Before that, he had an affair—only once, as he claimed—with the maid of the bookseller in whose house he was staying in Amsterdam, Hélène Jans. She became pregnant and gave birth to their daughter, Francine, who died at the age of five in 1640. Fifteen years later, Queen Christina and Hélène meet to exchange impressions and ease their nostalgia. They strike up a correspondence in which Christina urges Hélène to continue her work on an artificial language, a language that can be easily learned and will serve to promote communication among different nations and prevent war. Hélène also puts together a recipe book, called Book of Women, in which she gives various remedies that can be used to alleviate pain in childbirth, to improve one’s appearance, to attract a lover… Before she dies, she hands down her knowledge, the recipe book and her private papers, to her adopted daughter, Agnes, a distant ancestor of Einés’s. Einés decides to abandon all research on rationalism and to devote her time to writing an account of these women whom Time has forgotten. Black Nightshade, which could just as easily have been titled Chest in the Attic, Patchwork Quilt or Scent of Raspberries, is an emblematic work by a leading writer of her generation, Teresa Moure, and was awarded the Xerais Prize for best novel in 2005.

Black Nightshade (Small Stations Fiction)

Moure, Teresa

Genre Fiction

Xavier Queipo’s novel Kite follows the life of Francis, a Galician-born emigrant in the United States, who lives in the city of San Rafael, north of San Francisco, and works as a freelance translator and editor. At a showing of Apocalypse Now in the cinema, he meets Rose, a liberal and career-minded Irishwoman, and they start a passionate relationship. But their carefree and hedonistic relationship is threatened when Francis, who has been asked by his publisher, Martin, to complete a translation into English of the Portuguese writer José Saramago’s Essay on Blindness in record time, owing to the predictions that Saramago might win the Nobel Prize, is himself diagnosed with the onset of blindness. How will Rose react? How will Francis cope with this descent into darkness? And will he be able to finish his translation of Saramago’s work in time? Kite takes us on a journey into the lives of emigrants in the United States whose traditional upbringing is often in conflict with the permissive, liberal society they inhabit. Then there is Andy, Francis’s ex-lover and a loyal friend, for whom he still harbours intense feelings, and a return to the Galicia of his birth, an experience Francis hopes will be balsamic, but which may prove catastrophic. We are left with the image of a Chinese boy on the beach in San Rafael, trying to fly his kite, the symbol of something (or someone) at the mercy of the wind. The boy is grateful for the help Francis offers, but unsure whether to accept. There is the gesture; we are left with the time and space to interpret it.

Kite (Small Stations Fiction)

Queipo, Xavier

Stones Of Ithaca (Small Stations Essay)

Dunne, Jonathan

Religion & Spirituality

All is not well between Hadri&#65533;n and M&#65533;nica. Hadri&#65533;n is licking his wounds, after having been betrayed in the crypt and lost the dragon's powers as they were being transferred to him. All he thinks about is getting the dragon's powers back and being able to fly again. But he has started avoiding his girlfriend, M&#65533;nica, who reminds him of the status he has lost. And yet he can't help remembering the last time they were together at the Moor's Pool and the intimacy they shared. Meanwhile, M&#65533;nica has problems of her own - and not just the mathematical equations set by their teacher Miss Ermidas. Her period is late, and she is aware of an ever so slight heartbeat in her womb. If the prophecy that said, 'The day will come when the dragon's son will regain the power wrested from its father, ' did not in fact refer to Hadri&#65533;n, could it refer to the creature she is carrying? And how will Hadri&#65533;n react to the news that she might be pregnant? In this fourth instalment of the saga about the Galician dragon Dragal, the relationships between the members of the Fraternity - Hadri&#65533;n, M&#65533;nica, the policeman Corti&#65533;as, the museum director Iria, Hadri&#65533;n's mother Carme and his erstwhile rival Brais - become confused. Their ambitions collide, so they cannot always work together. And a new parish priest, Don Miguel, enters the mix, who is as keen as anybody to discover the ancient catacombs beneath the church that lead to the dragon's crypt. But with the summer solstice approaching, who will make it there first - the dragon's allies or its enemies?

Dragal IV: The Dragon's Lineage (19)

Teen & Young Adult

Gallego Abad, Elena

Harvest Moon (Small Stations Fiction)

Sumai, Anxos

Literary

Feral River (Small Stations Fiction)

Toro, Xelís de

United States

Barefoot Shadow (Galician Wave)

An Alfaya

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