Juana knows how to deal with harsh reality. She has no other choice. Growing up in the post-war Spain of the 1950s means a life of poverty, hunger, and gruelling work. Juana leaves the home she has known all her life and heads to Barcelona to look for employment. For a time she finds a wage and a bed in the house of the devious Madame Monterde, but after discovering Monterde's shameful secret Juana is thrown out onto the street. Companionship and some hope comes in the unlikely form of Liberto, a home-bound watchmaker many years Juana's senior. However, as a persecuted anarchist trapped into shady dealings with Madame Monterde, Liberto has his own problems - As her story unfolds Juana shows us that, when love is not enough, and nothing in life is sure, she can rely on one person, and one person alone, to provide the strength she needs to survive. Herself.
Juana knows how to deal with harsh reality. She has no other choice. Growing up in the post-war Spain of the 1950s means a life of poverty, hunger, and gruelling work. Juana leaves the home she has known all her life and heads to Barcelona to look for employment. For a time she finds a wage and a bed in the house of the devious Madame Monterde, but after discovering Monterde's shameful secret Juana is thrown out onto the street. Companionship and some hope comes in the unlikely form of Liberto, a home-bound watchmaker many years Juana's senior. However, as a persecuted anarchist trapped into shady dealings with Madame Monterde, Liberto has his own problems - As her story unfolds Juana shows us that, when love is not enough, and nothing in life is sure, she can rely on one person, and one person alone, to provide the strength she needs to survive. Herself.
Olga Merino has lived in London and Moscow, where she worked as a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El Periodico de Cataluna. In 2006 she won the literary prize NH Mario Vargas Llosa to the best single short-story for the tale Las normas son las normas (Rules are Rules), which recreates an impossible love story between a British soldier, disabled during the Crimean War, and a Welsh nurse, based upon the historic personality of Betsy Cadwaladyr.
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