Summary of The River
In Sanchez Ferlosio’s novel “The River”, eleven young friends spend a lazy August Sunday by the banks of the Jarama river, seeking respite from the heat of Madrid. They chat, swim, and flirt, but as the day draws to a close, the Jarama river reveals a tragic event that took place when no one was paying attention.
Reasons to read The River
“The River” is a poetic novel that offers a glimpse into the lives and conversations of ordinary Spanish people in the 1950s. On a deeper level, it is a symbolic novel that evokes unresolved conflicts of the past. The setting of this summer idyll is the river Jarama, where, 20 years earlier, one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War took place. Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio was awarded the Premio Cervantes, Spain’s most prestigious literary award, in 2004. In 2009, he received the Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas. “The River” is his best-known book and won both the Premio Nadal in 1955 and the Premio de la Crítica in 1957. In 2001, the newspaper El Mundo included “The River” in its list of the best Spanish novels of the 20th century. Sánchez Ferlosio also wrote the classic fantasy novel “The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhuí” (“Industrias y andanzas de Alfanhuí”). As a side note, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio was the son of Rafael Sánchez Mazas, the anti-hero of Javier Cercas’ 2001 novel “Soldiers of Salamis”.
Setting: Puente Viveros, Jarama River (Spain)
Original title: El Jarama
Year of publication: 1956
Nr of pages: 256
