Masīr-i Zindigī: Persian 1403

Daniel el Mochuelo, at eleven years old, senses that his path is in the village, with his friends, his people, and his birds. But his father wants him to go to the city to study for his high school diploma. Throughout the night before his departure, Daniel, sleepless and with a lump in his throat, will recall his adventures with his friends - Roque el Moñigo and Germán el Tiñoso - through the fields, discovering the sky and the earth, and will relive the adventures of the simple people of the village. The human sympathy with which this childish gaze introduces us to the town, making us know an impressive gallery of types and the force with which, through frequently caricature-like features, they are always presented to us as clear and alive is one of the great successes of this novel. A happy evocation of a time whose charm and fascination we notice when it has already slipped through our fingers, El Camino is, due to its amalgam of realistic clarity, subtle humor, contained nostalgia, and poetic iridescence, not only one of Miguel Delibes' best novels but also, as critics have pointed out, one of the masterpieces of contemporary narrative.