The Hive
The Hive by Camilo José Cela, published by New York Review of Books on March 7, 2023, is now available in English for the first time in its complete and uncensored form. This edition spans 296 pages and presents a fragmented portrayal of life in Franco’s Spain, capturing the decadence and decay of the era. Set in Madrid during 1943, shortly after the Spanish Civil War, the narrative intricately weaves together the experiences of over three hundred characters, reflecting the oppressive atmosphere of the time.
Readers will find a daring exploration of societal wounds and the complexities of city life in a historical context. Cela’s writing style is noted for its provocative and irreverent nature, offering a vivid depiction of a society grappling with the aftermath of conflict. The Hive delves into themes of survival and resilience amidst chaos, showcasing the author’s unique approach to storytelling that combines both beauty and brutality. This edition invites readers to engage with a significant work of world literature that resonates with the tumultuous history of 20th-century Spain.
Official synopsis Publisher
Complete and uncensored in English for the very first time, a fragmented, daringly irreverent depiction of decadence and decay in Franco’s Spain written by the 1989 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The translator Anthony Kerrigan compared Camilo José Cela, the 1989 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, to Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Curzio Malaparte—all “ferocious writers, truculent, badly spoken, even foulmouthed.” However provocative and disturbing, Cela’s novels are also flat-out dazzling, their sentences as rigorous as they are riotous, lodging like knives in the reader’s mind. Cela called himself a proponent of “uglyism,” of “nothingism.” But he has the knack, to quote another critic, Américo Castro, of deploying those “nothings and lacks” to construct beauty.
The Hive is set over the course of a few days in the Madrid of 1943, not long after the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the regime of General Francisco Franco was at its most oppressive. The book includes more than three hundred characters whose comings and goings it tracks to hypnotic effect. Scabrous, scandalous, and profane, The Hive is a virtuosic group portrait of a wounded and sick society.
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