O baile dos estorniños

A famous writer, with heart problems and creativity, receives an alleged gift in the form of a story from a dying old man with whom he shares a hospital room. The short and intriguing story, which apparently has to do with Castelao and certain tragic events of the Galician postwar period, arouses the writer's curiosity, so he will begin an investigation in which, in principle, he does not believe. Conceived as the end of the Ribeira Sacra Trilogy , "O baile dos estorniños" masterfully fuses a current investigation, by the writer and a character with a detective soul, the Queen, with a dark and surprising plot of the past. It mixes with powerful strokes the decline of a noble family (and the lives of servants, farmers and neighbors who work around the palace where he lives) with the persecution of fugitives from the south of Lugo, the theft of babies and the repression of Franco during the war Civil and post-war. After several years of silence, Xabier Quiroga reappears in the Galician narrative. It does so by combining reality and fiction and supported by a rich language of its own, immersing us in the epic space of the Ribeira Sacra (this time centered on the pazo de Tor, and with the place of Albaredo, the monastery of As Bernardas and the Bouzuás swamp as highlights) and offer us a hard and captivating story in which no one is who they believe they are and almost nothing of what they have told us matches exactly reality.