Of Saints and Miracles

"Poetic and magical ... Astur's language is meticulous and vivid."--Asymptote A literary crime novel about family conflict in the Spanish countryside: breathtaking, tragic, sensuous and magical. Marcelino lives alone on his parents' farm, set deep in the beautiful but impoverished countryside of northern Spain. It's the place where he grew up, the place where he doted on his baby brother, the place where he protected his mother from their father's drunken rages. But when Marcelino's brother tricks him out of his house and land, a moment of anger sparks a chain of events that can't be reversed. Marcelino flees to the wild peaks of rural Asturias, becoming a cult hero as he evades the authorities. Into this, author Manuel Astur interweaves family tales and fables about the sun and the moon, about death and love, and offers glimpses into the lives of other villagers and the history of their community. Astur's poetic language and seamless blend of lyricism with the grotesque renders this book a treasure for the reader. Of Saints and Miracles is a sensuous portrayal of an outcast's struggle to survive in a chaotic world of both tragedy and magical splendor.

About the Author :
Manuel Astur is a Spanish author and journalist. He has written novels and collections of short stories and poetry and teaches literature at the Escuela de Letras de Gijón.

Review :
"Evoking Borgesian undertones with its inventive, self-aware narration, Of Saints and Miracles oscillates between crime fiction, fable, fantasy, and realism ... Poetic and magical ... a mesmerizing introduction to the Spanish author's oeuvre." --Asymptote "An astonishing novel that blends crime, fable and social commentary against the backdrop of a wild mountainous landscape, it lives from its singular narrative voice and an enthralling sense of freedom that marks Astur out as a novelist of unique brilliance ... Of Saints and Miracles causes us to look at the world anew." --Lunate Literary Journal "Astur takes the narrative to a series of strange places, some folkloric and some horrific ... Ambitious and unpredictable--the best kind of new spin on a timeless story." --Words Without Borders "This is a fierce, passionate book--at home in every genre because it knows that great fiction does not need to choose between them. Manuel Astur's writing moves between high lyricism and hard, stony realism, and Of Saints and Miracles has a style all of its own. Thanks to Claire Wadie's rigorous yet resourceful translation, this essential Spanish novel, with its compelling characters, histories and landscapes, is available to the anglophone reader in all its magic, tenderness and brutality." --Patrick McGuinness, author of Throw Me to the Wolves and The Last Hundred Days "This is the tale of a natural loner of immense gifts and vision--like Coetzee's Michael K--and is unlike any book I've read, by an author who seems enviably free: to stretch the limits of genres by blending fable and crime fiction; to tell a story at his own pace, in exquisite detail and from a rich choral perspective ... It's an extraordinary feat of writing, as is Claire Wadie's impeccable translation." --Sophie Hughes, translator of Hurricane Season and Paradais by Fernanda Melchor "This literary novel has the seal of determined originality, and is the admirable work of an author worth following." --El Cultural "The author is calling out to a society that has lost its sense of direction, and the pages of his book trace a path back to innocence. I cannot describe the beauty of his prose without spoiling it." --El Periódico "With a sensuous style that produces an almost physical effect, Astur plays with time, land and violence to weave together a plot that finds its logic in chaos like every real tragedy." --ABC Cultural "Brutality and derision mixed with tenderness and innocence ... It's all a miracle." --La Razón "Melancholic and somewhat unnerving ... A beautiful book." --European Literature Network