Los Alemanes (Premio Alfaguara 2024) / The Germans

Se instalarn, entre otros sitios, en Zaragoza y formarn all una pequea comunidad que ya no volver a Alemania. Entre ellos estaba el bisabuelo de Eva y Fede, quienes, casi un siglo despus, se encuentran en el cementerio alemn de Zaragoza en el entierro de Gabi, su hermano mayor. Junto con su padre, son los ltimos supervivientes de los Schuster, una familia que lleg a formar un importante negocio de alimentacin. Pero en los tiempos que corren el pasado siempre puede regresar para levantar ampollas.

Con una intriga que crece pgina a pgina, Los alemanes trata uno de los episodios ms vergonzosos y menos divulgados de la historia de Espaa: cmo los nazis refugiados aqu en un retiro dorado activaron el neonazismo en Alemania. Con sutileza alumbra el infierno que puede llegar a ser, en ocasiones, la familia, y deja en el aire dos preguntas incmodas: Cundo caducan las culpas de los padres? Llega hasta los hijos la obligacin de redimirlas?

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

In 1916, during World War I, two ships carrying more than six hundred Germans from Cameroon arrive in Cdiz. They have surrendered to the colonial authorities at the Guinean border as Spain is a neutral country.

They will settle, among other places, in Zaragoza and form a small community of people that will never return to Germany. Among them was Eva and Fede's great-grandfather, who, almost a century later, find themselves at the German cemetery in Zaragoza burying their older brother, Gabi. Along with their father, they are the last survivors of the Schuster family, who once built a significant food business. But in current times, the past can always resurface to stir up trouble.

With secrecy and conspiracies that grow page by page, Los alemanes / The Germans addresses one of the most shameful and less-publicized episodes in the history of Spain: how the Nazis who sought refuge there in a golden retreat, activated neo-Nazism in Germany. With subtlety, it shines a light on the hell that family can sometimes become and leaves two uncomfortable hanging questions: When do the parents' sins expire? Do the children have an obligation to redeem and liberate them from those sins?