Winter 2022 Online Reading Club: Patria, by Fernando Aramburu

Aramburu, who has also worked as a translator and teacher of Spanish in Germany -where he has lived since 1985- is a prolific writer of novels, short stories and essays. For his work, which began in 1996 with the publication of the novel Fuegos con limón (Fires with Lemon), he has received several of the most prestigious awards in Spanish and European literature: in 2008 he was awarded the Royal Spanish Academy Award for the collection of short stories Los peces de la amargura (The Fish of Bitterness); in 2011, the Tusquets Prize for Los años lentos (Slow Years); the novel Ávidas pretensiones (Avid Pretensions) would bring him the Biblioteca Breve Award in 2014; and Patria, which is his best-known novel, a total sales and popularity phenomena, was a resounding success with 14 awards, including the Critics' Award and the Spanish National Narrative Award.

To date, Patria has been translated into 34 languages ​​and has sold 1.2 million copies. In addition, the television platform HBO adapted it into a series - very succesful as well. It is not the only work by Aramburu made into a movie, since his book El trompetista del Utopía (The Utopia's Trumpetist) was made into a movie in 2007 with the title Under the Stars (Félix Viscarret).

Patria places its history in a fictional town in the province of Guipúzcoa in 2011, when the terrorist group ETA announced the abandonment of arms. Bittori, the widow of an ETA victim, decides then to return to the town that she once had to leave due to the climate of repression. Although things seem to be calm now, the arrival of Bittori will stir the waters and cause agitation among the neighbours, some of whom are old acquaintances of the family, as is the case of Miren, who was once her best friend, and who is the mother of a jailed ETA member whom Bittori suspects may be her husband's murderer. 

The Reading Club tutor, Álvaro González Montero has a degree in Translation and Language studies (English, French and Arabic) from the University of Malaga and teaches Spanish at a secondary school in Leeds. He is working on a Master's research project at the University of Leeds. In it he analyzes the construction of identity, especially homosexuality, colonialism and disease, in the diaries of Jaime Gil de Biedma, under the supervision of leading academics Richard Cleminson and Duncan Wheeler. His research interests include the Spanish Generation of 1950, the theory of the diaries, colonialism and the development of identity in literature.