Summary of The Carpenter’s Pencil
“The Carpenter’s Pencil” tells a story of enduring love between Marisa, the daughter of a right-wing family, and Daniel, a doctor with left-wing sympathies, in 1930s Santiago de Compostela. Daniel is imprisoned by General Franco’s regime and has a hard time with the prison guard Herbal. Herbal is secretly in love with Marisa and has mixed feelings of hatred and admiration towards Daniel. The title’s ‘pencil’ refers to an artist whom Herbal shot dead to spare him from torture.
Reasons to read The Carpenter’s Pencil
“The Carpenter’s Pencil” is a brief yet powerful novella often classified as a love story, but probably more a prison novel. It is an insightful read for those interested in Galician identity and the Spanish Civil War. The Guardian called it “a beautiful portrait of a brutal, ugly period of Spanish history.” Manuel Rivas is a Spanish novelist who writes in the Galician language. He won many literary prizes, including the Premio Nacional de Narrativa in 1996, and the Premio de la Crítica de narrativa gallega in 1998 (for “The Carpenter’s Pencil”). In 2022, Manuel Rivas was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. “The Carpenter’s Pencil” is the most widely translated work of Galician literature and was adapted into a film titled “O lapis do carpinteiro” (in Spanish and Gallician).
Setting: Santiago de Compostella, Galicia (Spain)
Original title: O lapis do carpinteiro
Year of publication: 1998
Nr of pages: 169
