Madrid será la tumba

Madrid será la tumba

This week we are delighted to announce the acquisition of another fantastic novel.

Elizabeth Duval’s Madrid será la tumba was published last year by Lengua de Trapo. Duval’s first work of fiction is set in 2016 Madrid between two very different barrios, the staunch, upper-middle-class Goya, and the vibrant, traditionally working class Lavapiés.

The story takes place in two occupied buildings in these districts: one the former headquarters of the NO-DO (a news organisation that produced propaganda during the Franco era), conquered by a small fascist group, and the other, the ruins of some abandoned film studios, converted into the barracks of a Marxist-Leninist cell. Between these two spaces are Santiago and Ramiro.

Whilst the main premise of the novel is a love story between these two militants, Duval does much more than this. We read of flares against mosques, clashing demonstrations and the use of internet forums as weapons of mass destruction. The future of the city, where naivety has been eradicated and love has become a privilege, is linked to the fate of these two organisations on the periphery of politics.

At once discursive and devastating, Duval’s first novel is imbued with the same traits as the era she portrays. It is sad, passionate and comes loaded with dire images; a portrait of violence, images and words.

‘Elizabeth Duval narrates disorder and subversion with a writing that is sometimes reserved, sometimes flows freely, sometimes ironic and sometimes poetic, very modest and powerfully beautiful. She illuminates the human mystery and carries the reader on wings until leaving them on the edge where their convictions tremble and shake’. – Juan Manuel de Prada, ABC

‘A merciless portrait of Madrid, a city at once loved and despised, or loved in contempt. A stupendous novel.’ – Nadal Suau, El Cultural