South and Bene

In these novellas Adelaida Garcia Morales explores sensitive territory, and her narrators observe it with the adolescent's amoral clarity.

"In The South", Adriana's sad enigmatic father presents her with his own suicide on her fifteenth birthday. She travels form the harsh north to the mysterious south in search of an absence, the man whom she loved and admired. In the south, where her father's youth and hopes were rooted, she learns to come to terms with her loss. This haunting novella was made into an acclaimed film by Victor Erice.

"Bene" is also the story of a father's absence, but more sinister in the telling. In a remote country house Bene, a servant maimed by an ambiguous relationship with her father, takes over when her master leaves. She comes to dominate the lives of the narrator and the son of the house, to chilling effect.

Good and evil, innocence and corruption mingle in these timeless stories, in a Spain where the supernatural has not lost any of its power.