A compulsively readable and immensely moving "true tale" of fiction.
In the final moments of the Spanish Civil War, as the remnants of the Republican army retreat north to exile, fifty prominent Nationalist prisoners are taken out to be shot. Among them is Rafael Sanchez Mazas - writer, fascist and founder of the Spanish Falange.
As the machine-guns begin to fire, Sanchez Mazas seizes his chance and escapes into the forest. When his hiding place is discovered by a militiaman, he faces death for the second time that day. But the unknown soldier simply looks him in the eye, turns and walks away. The writer becomes a national hero and ultimately a minister in Franco's first government. The soldier disappears into history.
As Cercas sifts the evidence to establish what really happened, he realises that the hero of his story may not be Sanchez Mazas at all, but the soldier who chose not to shoot him. Who was he? Why did he spare him? Might he still be alive?
In this elegantly constructed novel, told with self-deprecating melancholy humour, Javier Cercas has created an original work of literature - a "true tale" that is at once an investigation of historical truth, an essay on heroism and a celebration of the power of fiction.
