Cristina-Sánchez-Andrade is, simply, one of the best writers in Spain. Her language is vastly rich. A memorable narration. A flawless and unusual novel.

The Book Club is very grateful to both Cristina and Henry for their generous sharing of insights into the writing and publishing of the book. As with all our previous guest speakers, they added to our understanding and enjoyment of the book immeasurably. And The Winterlings certainly gets a hearty thumbs-up from the English PEN Translated Literature Book Club.The writing in this novel is strong. I particularly admired the romanticism which Sánchez-Andrade weaves into her descriptions, which gives them the feel of a fairytale. She writes, for instance, ‘Bats and owls crashed into each other, flying in loops. Ivy had invaded the house, and the chimney, bursting with foliage, had acquired the dimensions and appearance of a crumbling tower. The house had an orchard with a lemon tree, and bushes that sheltered butterflies and rustling noises; at the bottom, a river coursed with slender and succulent trout.’ The house in which the sisters live is on the edge of a forest described as ‘taut and dense’. I liked the relatively matter-of-fact descriptions too, which contrast nicely with the above. When the sisters spend their first evening in the house, Sánchez-Andrade writes: ‘They swept the floor. They pulled down the cobwebs. They put away the provisions they had brought. They made soup. The light dwindled, and the cold sharpened.’ Would I recommend it to someone to show a Spanish literary scene? Thus far, I only have read this so why not. In The Winterlings, we meet two sisters, named Saladina and Dolores who have returned to their childhood home. They lived with their grandfather in a small community in Galicia, named Tierra de Chá. Here, they find that ‘nothing and everything has changed: the people, the distant little house in the rain, the acrid smell of gorse, the flowers, the crops, the customs.’ Their return serves to disrupt the ‘placid existence of the villagers, stirring up memories best left alone.’ La novela avanza, se siente, se recrea en esos recuerdos, nos habla de los vecinos: el profesor, el cura, el mecánico dentista: que si uno se ha casado porque sí, que si el otro era un egoísta, que si el de más allá se dedicaba a robar dientes a los muertos. Los gallegos son gente de costumbres. La forma de escribir de la autora es peculiar y me ha enamorado. El ritmo es pausado, incluso poético a veces, los personajes extravagantes, la atmósfera oscura e introduce elementos de realismo mágico que podrían haberme asustado pero no lo han hecho. Todo encaja, hasta sus personajes llenos de clichés: el maestro, el cura, el dentista... cuyas vidas vienen a poner patas arriba las dos hermanas.

Cristina Sánchez-Andrade (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 1968) is the author of eight novels, including Ya no pisa la tierra tu rey (Your King No Longer Walks this Earth), which won the Guadalajara International Book Fair's prestigious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz literary prize in 2005, and Las Inviernas ( The Winterlings), which was a finalist for the Herralde Novel Prize in 2013. Her work has been translated into English, Portuguese, Italian, Polish and Russian. She lives in Madrid. Long before writing Las Inviernas, Cristina had penned the many tales told to her by her grandmother, but hadn’t found a way to present them to readers – until this book. The man who ran 40 miles a day believing himself to be a bus and the elderly woman daily given the last rites for years were both such stories. El tema: dos mujeres dos llegan a una aldea. Se las conoce como Las inviernas. Y se las conoce porque hace tiempo, muchos años, como veinte o treinta, siendo una niñas, ya vivían en el pueblo, en ese pueblo, pueblucho, con su abuelo, abuelito querido, abuelito lindo y bueno, abuelito que un día, justito antes de morir, las sacó de allí con cierta precipitación no les fuera a pasar algo. Ellas… bueno, hicieron lo que se les dijo: huyeron, emigraron, vivieron el Londres, trabajaron, volvieron a Galicia, acumularon secretos y hoy, tanto tiempo después, han vuelto al hogar dulce hogar, al monte, a casa del abuelo sin abuelo.Rather than somebody's home, this is an abandoned building that is occupied by a series of offbeat individuals, both locals and petty London gangsters. Cristina-Sánchez-Andrade is, simply, one of the best writers in Spain. Her language is vastly rich. A memorable narration. A flawless and unusual novel." -- El Correo Gallego

Samuel Rutter is a writer and translator from Melbourne, Australia. His work can be found in journals such as Overland and Meanjin and his translation of Cristina Sánchez-Andrade's novel The Winterlings received a PEN Translates grant in 2015. With a special interest in the fiction of the Cono Sur region of Latin America, he has translated contemporary authors including Hernán Ronsino, Matías Celedón, Carlos Labbé, and Selva Almada. Currently a PhD candidate in Spanish at the University of Melbourne, in 2016 he will undertake an MFA in Creative Writing at Vanderbilt University. Cristina Sánchez-Andrade is the author of eight novels. She has won the Guadalajara International Book Fair’s prestigious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz literary prize, and The Winterlings was a finalist for the Herralde Novel Prize in 2013. She lives in Madrid. The transvestite dentist Tenderlove was inspired by the ‘dentist mechanic’ Cristina’s father used to visit, fearing the attentions of real dentists. Looking for gold teeth in the mouths of corpses was, upsettingly, based on the reality of life for the poor during the Civil War.

Browse reviews by Century

Los hombres doblados sobre la tierra se enderezaron para observar. Las mujeres detuvieron las escobas. Los niños dejaron de jugar: dos mujeres con grandes huesos cansados, como irritados de la vida, atravesaban la plaza del pueblo. Así comienza esa historia, que nos traslada a la Galicia de la posguerra. Las Inviernas vuelven a casa, seguidas de cuatro ovejas y una vaca, tirando de un carro que esconde secretos y vida. Regresan a la aldea que las vio partir deprisa, siendo aún unas niñas. Y desde que llegan todo son habladurías, su vuelta parece perturbar a todos, pero nadie las dice nada. The haunting story of two witchy sisters who return to their late grandfather’s home in the Spanish village of their childhood … skilfully written and powerfully imaginative. Tension mounts when the sisters, once united by their passion for Hollywood cinema, compete for the chance to stand in for Ava Gardner in the nearby filming of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Meanwhile, suspicion seeps in: Why have the women returned, and what are they hiding? What perverse business arrangement did the townspeople make with their grandfather, and why won’t they speak of his death? The story centers around two sisters who return to the Spanish village where they once lived with their grandfather. After a youth spent in exile, their return revives the old fears, superstitions and resentments that led to their grandfather's murder during the Spanish civil war. Like the characters in a morality play, each resident is distinctly human, but has a grotesque almost absurd aspect. The life of the village and the interactions of its residents is juxtaposed against the glory of the cinema. Both sisters love film and yearn to escape, to become someone else. Identity issues are at the heart of this tale, from the yearning sisters to the cross dressing dentist.