Summary of The Family of Pascual Duarte
“The Family of Pascual Duarte” recounts the harsh life story of Pascual Duarte, a poor, impulsive, and violent man who lives with his dysfunctional family in Extremadura and is ultimately driven to murder his own mother. The novel is presented largely in the protagonist’s own voice, written in a rural idiom, as a confession composed in prison while he awaits execution.
Reasons to read The Family of Pascual Duarte
“The Family of Pascual Duarte” is a stark, tragic, and unsettling novel about a man living on the margins of society in rural Spain during the first half of the twentieth century (1882–1937). It offers an unflinching portrayal of life leading up to and during the Spanish Civil War. The novel is widely regarded as the defining work of the Spanish literary movement known as tremendismo—a form of extreme realism infused with existentialism and social critique, characteristic of the bleak post-Civil War period. It is considered a classic of modern Spanish literature and was included in El Mundo’s list of the 100 best Spanish-language novels of the twentieth century. Camilo José Cela was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989 and the Premio Cervantes in 1995. Other notable works by Cela include “The Hive” and “Mazurka for Two Dead Men”.
Setting: Extremadura (Spain)
The novel is mainly set in Torremejía, in the province of Badajoz (Extremadura)
Original title: La familia de Pascual Duarte
Year of publication: 1942
Nr of pages: 166
