The Holy Innocents

Resumen del libro

Adapted into an award-winning film by Mario Camus In the arid province of Extremadura in 1960s Spain, life on a country estate carries on as it has for centuries: wealthy landowners live in luxury while workers endure lives of poverty and humiliation. Amid this exploitation and injustice live Régula, an estate's gatekeeper, and her husband, Paco, the hunting attendant of the contemptuous Señorito Iván.

Régula's brother Azarías toils as a farmhand, but he prefers chasing tawny owls at night, training his pet jackdaw, and caring for his young niece, who is bedridden. When Paco is injured, the nature-loving Azarías is forced to take over as hunting attendant. But after Señorito Iván commits an act of enormous cruelty following an unsuccessful hunt, it is only a matter of time before the simmering tensions between the aristocracy and the workers explode.

A perennial Spanish classic, translated into twelve languages but never before into English, The Holy Innocents is a searing tale of human cruelty and alienation, in which resistance and liberation are not just necessary but possible.

Biografía del autor

Miguel Delibes (Valladolid, 1920-2010) se dio a conocer como novelista con La sombra del ciprés es alargada, Premio Nadal 1947. Entre su vasta obra narrativa destacan Mi idolatrado hijo Sisí, El camino, Las ratas, Cinco horas con Mario, Las guerras de nuestros antepasados, El disputado voto del señor Cayo, Los santos inocentes, Señora de rojo sobre fondo gris o El hereje. Fue galardonado con el Premio Nacional de Literatura (1955), el Premio de la Crítica (1962), el Premio Nacional de las Letras (1991) y el Premio Cervantes de Literatura (1993). Desde 1973 era miembro de la Real Academia Española. Ediciones Destino ha publicado sus Obras completas.