{"product_id":"what-we-tried-to-bury-grows-here-isbn-9781953387530","title":"What We Tried to Bury Grows Here","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize Finalist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA masterly crafted and haunting tale of survival, longing, and empathy, set during the Spanish Civil War, now in a new paperback edition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Julian Zabalbeascoa is the real deal, a major talent, and the story he’s telling here is both riveting and terrifying.” —Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of \u003ci\u003eEmpire Falls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn late 1936, eighteen-year-old Isidro Elejalde leaves his Basque village in Northern Spain, spurred to join the fight to preserve his country’s democracy from the insurrectionists by the rousing words of a political essayist. Months earlier, Spanish generals launched a military coup to overthrow Spain’s newly elected left-wing government. They assumed the population would welcome the coup, but throughout the country people like Isidro remained loyal to the ideals of democracy, and the Spanish Civil War began in bloody earnest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Bilbao, Mariana raises her two young children while, with her writing, she decries the fascist-backed coup attempt and their German and Italian allies, imploring the world to support democracy. As the Nationalist forces assault the country, Mariana and Isidro’s lives intersect fleetingly, yet in meaningful and lasting ways.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried to Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e is a remarkable feat of research and imagination, as well as a transcendent literary accomplishment.\"Daring... In \u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried to Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e, almost two dozen narrators vie to convey the danger and uncertainty of life in a country where “tomorrow you never knew who would throw you against the wall for the actions of today.” We hear from priests and soldiers, mothers and children, prisoners and refugees. Amid the inevitable violence and horror, there are the equally inevitable heroes and villains, but for everyone the world has acquired 'an evil stink.' Mariana knows her compatriots have no choice but to fight on, yet she also knows that 'the war will make us unrecognizable to our former selves.'\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Alida Becker, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Zabalbeascoa’s characters cannot foresee the tragic end to the war, but readers do, and this chilling knowledge adds to the tension in this compelling and hauntingly prescient novel.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Wendy J. Fox, \u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Zabalbeascoa brings together family lore and mountains of research to paint a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Spanish Civil War, particularly its impact on the people of Spain’s Basque region.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Kate Tuttle, \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried to Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e implores us to look back to history to not fall into passivity but instead take note of the perils of today. Zabalbeascoa structures his novel as a series of first-person vignettes, giving rise to a chorus of characters. It’s an imaginative and impressive feat of literary ventriloquism to hear from Basque soldiers. This structure allows Zabalbeascoa to comment on the collective nature of war while showing how it is an intensely personal undertaking. Through these characters, we are allowed to see slices of their war and how it builds to something more encompassing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Brock Kingsley, \u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A stunning first novel, ambitious, intensely true, certain to be read for a long time. Zabalbeascoa is a phenomenon.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Philipp Meyer, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Son\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAmerican Rust\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Julian Zabalbeascoa is ferociously brilliant at rendering both the epic sweep of history—Franco’s rise to power, the Spanish Civil War—and the particular contours of daily life. The wineskins soldiers stash under their hospital mattresses. A bit of cake dipped in marmalade. The \"metallic whistle” of a rifle shell. What We Tried to Bury Grows Here is a stunningly powerful novel about the individual acts of courage and violence that have shaped history as we know it. A virtuosic and unforgettable debut.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Laura van den Berg, author of \u003ci\u003eState of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried to Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e is a startling book, beautiful and horrific, that navigates the complexities of Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War, in which fascism and communism, regionalism and nationalism, and faith and skepticism do battle across a brilliantly evoked, suffering landscape.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Phil Klay, National Book Award winning author of \u003ci\u003eRedeployment\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMissionaries\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In the tradition of such master story tellers as Isaac Babel and Phil Klay, Julian Zabalbeascoa has written a piercing narrative set during the Spanish Civil War. Alive with wonderful characters, moments of dread, bathos and humour, \u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried to Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates a crucial period of history. This is a timely and absorbing novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Margot Livesey, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Boy in the Field\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMercury\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Flight of Gemma Hardy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Julian Zabalbeascoa is the real deal, a major talent, and the story he’s telling here is both riveting and terrifying.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of \u003ci\u003eEmpire Falls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The rise of authoritarian rule is never an abstraction, it is always horrifically concrete for those who experience it. But as each bloody injustice fades into history, we run the risk of losing what we have learned that may have the power to forestall yet another such assault on democracy, which is just one reason why Julian Zabalbeascoa’s timely and deeply moving novel should be required reading for us all. Written with spare, evocative, and hypnotic prose, Zabalbeascoa takes us deeply into the lives of men and women – many of them of the Basque minority - who fought Franco and his allies during the Spanish Civil War. This is an important and necessary work of art for our fraught times, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Andre Dubus III, author of \u003ci\u003eHouse of Sand and Fog\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Gone So Long\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eTownie: A Memoir\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Debut novelist Zabalbeascoa’s decision to tell his story through a plethora of individual narrators perfectly captures the messiness of a civil war... [\u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried To Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e] builds to an emotionally compelling climax.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJulian Zabalbeascoa\u003c\/b\u003e’s fiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eAmerican Short Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Gettysburg Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGlimmer Train\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOne Story\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003ePloughshares\u003c\/i\u003e, among other journals. He divides his time between Boston and the Basque Country in Spain. \u003ci\u003eWhat We Tried to Bury Grows Here\u003c\/i\u003e is his first novel.","brand":"Two Dollar Radio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233843327205,"sku":"NP9781953387530","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781953387530.jpg?v=1767743911","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/what-we-tried-to-bury-grows-here-isbn-9781953387530","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}