Böcker av Paco Martín

This volume contains four of the best short stories by Spanish National Book Award winner Paco Martín. In "The New Fire", a commune has been set up in an abandoned village. One of the residents, Mr Mirión, has a kind of totem pole in his yard, which the narrator and his friend would like to use for the St John's bonfire, but they're afraid to approach him. In "Fina", a local doctor writes a letter to his ex-wife and a group of friends to explain the case of a young patient called Fina, who later became a very beautiful woman, and how desperate she was to have a child. In "Pitchfork", a name used in Galician to refer to the common earwig, Rita is having an affair with a married composer, Silvio Moreiras, who introduces her by a different name wherever they go. Silvio arranges to take her to a friend's villa with a view to having a good time and then calling off their relationship. In "Motorway", Milucho is an unofficial guide who accompanies tour groups to various destinations. On the way from Galicia to Madrid, the brand-new bus they are on breaks down, and Milucho is left to appease the travellers in searing heat, without being able to pinpoint on the map exactly where they are. A rich and varied story collection with elements of the supernatural. Paco Martín is well known for his stories and children's literature. In 1986, he was one of only two Galician writers to win the Spanish National Book Award for his novel The Things of Ramón Lamote, illustrated by Xoán Balboa and also available in English from Small Stations Press.

Ramón Lamote, a living representation of the city he inhabits, aged sixty-one, gives private lessons in a local dialect, Terra Chá, and augments his income by taking on commissions to draw dreams. He is a keen observer of the life that goes on around him, unfailingly polite and ever willing to lend a helping hand. On a visit to a large important house in the city centre, he comes across a book that warns of the imminent arrival of a dragon-like creature called a Noticer, which awakens every 696 years, and he hurries to inform the Lord Mayor (though getting in to see him requires all his ingenuity). On another occasion, a fat woman is blocking the stairs, and Ramón Lamote is unable to find a way past her to make it to his lesson on time. He is invited to give a lecture on a kind of domestic animal and chooses the Endomodelph, an egg-laying mammal that sings and whistles through its behind. An enormous pipe appears one day in front of his house, which seems to serve no purpose until the local children come up with a use for it, which quickly catches on. After his lessons, the teacher and drawer of dreams likes to visit the local railway station and to play at guessing people's destinations. And in July he places an advertisement in the newspaper for the first ever Cloud Race, with marmolubles for prizes, an idea that draws the Lord Mayor's attention and soon has everybody talking about it. In The Things of Ramón Lamote, a modern classic of Galician literature and one of the first works in Galician to win the Spanish National Book Award, we are invited to witness the sublime and ordinary, the comic and absurd features of life in a provincial city.