Winner of the Ramon Llull Prize 2023
During World War II, together they discovered love, freedom, and Paris.
The novel narrates the extraordinary life of an exiled son of sharecroppers who falls in love with a very young Catalan woman who has also taken refuge in France during World War II. Committed to the Republic and close to Lluís Companys during the Civil War, he overcomes the toxic atmosphere of exile and combats adversity. He manages France's largest circus, exploits forests in Occitania under the occupation of Nazi Germany, organizes the first solidarity concerts of Pau Casals, collaborates with the maquis of Cerdanya, escapes the clutches of the Gestapo, and directs a Catalanist publication advocating for unity.
Facing hardships, persecutions, and established morals, together they will discover love, freedom, and Paris.
"They walked back, crossing the Tuileries Garden and wandering along the banks of the Seine. It was a full moon night and the Paris sky seemed boundless. Everything was so grand, monumental, and polite, that the war seemed distant, and when he explained to her that the Parisians had cultivated gardens in those parks, due to the hunger they suffered, she couldn't believe it. When her father showed her where the former headquarters of the Germans had been, at Place de la Concorde, it seemed impossible to her, and she found it hard to imagine fanatics like those from Draguignan dragging the shadow of the Gestapo through Rue de Rivoli. If it weren't for the fact that she had the images of the Nazis parading through the Champs-Élysées in mind, she would have thought that the occupation had been one of those nightmares that tormented her in the Argelers camp."
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