Translation Rights TQE / Antonio B. The Russian, Third-class Citizen

Based on a true story, Antonio B. el Ruso, ciudadano de tercera is the first-person narration of a man’s life from his birth in Las Cabreras (León, Spain) in the early 1930’s until the end of the Franco regime in the 1970’s. Antonio B. leads a harsh life: he must steal to eat, his mother abandons him, his neighbors hate him, and the authorities constantly mistreat him. He becomes familiar with jails, prisons, and mental institutions, until he reaches the Basque Country region, finds a job and manages to straighten out his life.

Real-life characters and reliable information make for an impressive, impetuous and deeply moving narration. Pinilla has stated that Antonio could not possibly add an ounce of fantasy to the story of his life. The harsh reality of it is a sharp reflection of life during the post-war period in Spain, of calamity and poverty, of hate and vengeance, of misery and the struggle to escape permanent repression and humiliation. The main character, a rebel who will not be subdued, acquires unknown proportions to become an absolutely realistic tragic hero. 

The book, first published over thirty years ago, became a work of reference during the Spanish Transition and its reappearance has been greatly awaited ever since. Antonio B. el ruso is a literary event, given its modernity and the impressive harsh truth of the story.

‘Vista en su conjunto, la narrativa de Ramiro Pinilla es una demostración más de que la gran literatura puede ser, al tiempo que amena, divertida, el mayor entretenimiento del mundo, una pieza clave en la construcción y comprensión del universo en el que vivimos.’

Enrique Murillo, Babelia

Ramiro Pinilla was born in Bilbao in 1923. He won the Nadal Prize in 1960 and the National Prize of the Critics in 1961 with the novel Las ciegas hormigas (The Blind Ants), and was a finalist to the Planeta Prize in 1971 with Seno (Breast).  For almost three decades he voluntarily distanced himself from the publishing industry. During that time, Pinilla published his own works, such as En el tiempo de los tallos verdes (In the Age of Green Stems, 1969), Recuerda, oh recuerda (Remember, Oh Remember, 1974), Primeras historias de la Guerra interminable (The First Stories of the Never-ending War, 1977), La gran guerra de Doña Toda (The Great War of Mrs. Toda, 1978), Andanzas de Txiqui Baskardo (The Adventures of Txiqui Baskardo, 1980), Quince años (Fifteen Years, 1990), and Huesos (Bones, 1997). Pinilla returned to the publishing circuit with Verdes valles, Colinas rojas (Green Vallies, Red Hills), a trilogy made up of the novels La tierra convulsa (The Earth Trembles), Los cuerpos desnudos (Naked Bodies), and Las cenizas del hierro (Iron Ashes) that won the Euskadi Prize 2005, the National Critics Prize, and the National Prize for Narrative in 2006. That same year, Pinilla published La higuera (The Fig Tree), a novel about the Civil War, humiliation, and forgiveness that is currently being translated into several languages.