Presentes
The last reading of the year for the virtual book club "4 Readings 4 Continents" is the novel Presentes by Paco Cerdà.
The war is over. Spain is in ruins. In the Alicante cemetery, the remains of José Antonio Primo de Rivera are exhumed. His Falangist comrades will carry him on their shoulders to be buried in El Escorial, residence of kings, imperial sepulchre. For eleven days and ten nights, the phantasmagorical procession will advance through towns and cities amidst bonfires, frost, raised arms, and propaganda: a 467-kilometre fascist epic to demonstrate who rules the new Spain.
However, the war is not over. One memory is being built, and another is to be erased. In those harsh days of the autumn of 1939, thousands of humble lives suffer the claw of repression. Prisoners, executed people, exiles, forced labourers, internees in concentration camps, purged teachers, unfortunate victors forever. The regime tries to hide them. But there they are: presentes (present).
Paco Cerdà (Genovés, 1985) is a journalist and writer. He is the author of the books 14 de abril (April 14) (Libros del Asteroide Non-Fiction Award 2022, Valencian Critics' Award, and Navarrese Bookstores' Award); El peón (The Pawn) (Cálamo Book of the Year Award 2020 and finalist for the Best Foreign Book Award in France and the Avignonnais, Virevolte, Ville d'Arles, and Pierre-François Caillé awards); and Los últimos (The Last Ones) (2017).
Presentes (Alfaguara, 2024), considered one of the best books of the year by Babelia, has won the 2025 National Narrative Award (Premio Nacional de Narrativa), the El Ojo Crítico Narrative Award, and the Brutal Award for the best non-fiction book from La Biblioteca de Hoy por Hoy, and has become an international phenomenon set to be published in fourteen countries.