Translation Rights TQE / The Frozen Heart

Upon his death, Julio Carrión, a powerful businessman whose fortune dates back to the Franco years, leaves his children a substantial inheritance, but also many blanks about his past and his experiences during the Spanish Civil War and fighting with the Blue Division. During the burial, his son Álvaro, the only one who has not wanted to take part in the family business, is surprised by the presence of a young, attractive woman, who he has never seen before, and who seems to know something about the private life of his father. Raquel Fernández Perea is the daughter and granddaughter of Spanish exiles in France, and she knows almost everything there is to know about her family’s past, their experience during the war, and their exile. Only one story remains a mystery, and that is the afternoon when her grandfather, who had just returned to Madrid, took her to visit a family with whom they seemed to be indebted in some way.

With El corazón helado, Almudena Grandes has written her most ambitious novel thus far, as she traces the history of the Franco years, of the Spanish transition, and of the conflict with memory endured by the new generations, through the history of two families.

Almudena Grandes was born in Madrid in 1960. She became widely recognized as a writer in 1989 with her novel Las edades de Lulú, which won the XI Sonrisa Vertical Prize. She has been accompanied by the acclaim of readers and critics ever since. She’s the author of ten novels and two books of short stories that have confirmed her as one of the most solid and internationally-known narrators in recent Spanish literature. Many of her works have been taken to the big screen, and her novel, El corazón helado, one of the most acclaimed and long-lasting successes in current Spanish literature, has received, among other awards, the Fundación Lara Prize, the prizes of the booksellers in Madrid and Seville, the Rapallo Carige in Italy and the Prix Méditerranée in France. Her previous novel Inés y la alegría was awarded the Critic’s Prize in Madrid 2011 and the Elena Poniatowska Prize 2011 and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize 2011, both in Mexico.