Of Saints and Miracles

Powell's Midyear Roundup

The Best Books of 2022 (So Far)

Fusing fantasy, fabulism, and fratricide, Manuel Astur’s Of Saints and Miracles (translated by Claire Wadie) abounds with imagination and atmospherics. The Spanish author’s tale of an improbable fugitive on the lam (following an unforgivable betrayal) brims with gorgeous prose, blending past and present, thought and feeling, light and dark, the earthen and the ethereal. Wondrously winsome, Of Saints and Miracles reads like a reverie made manifest. Call it magic, call it a marvel, Astur’s enchanting new novel is as beatific and beautiful as they come. Recommended By Jeremy G., Powells.com

A literary crime novel about family conflict in the Spanish countryside: breathtaking, tragic, sensuous and magical.
 
Marcelino lives alone on his parents’ farm, set deep in the beautiful but impoverished reaches of northern Spain. It’s the place where he grew up, the place where he doted on his baby brother, the place where he protected his mother from their father’s drunken rages. But when Marcelino’s brother tricks him out of his house and land, a moment of anger sparks a chain of events that can’t be reversed. Marcelino flees to the wild peaks of rural Asturias, becoming a cult hero as he evades the authorities. Into this, author Manuel Astur interweaves family tales and fables about the sun and the moon, of death and love, and offers glimpses into the lives of other villagers and the history of their community. Astur’s poetic language and seamless blend of lyricism with the grotesque renders this book a treasure for the reader. Of Saints and Miracles is a sensuous portrayal of an outcast’s struggle to survive in a chaotic world of both tragedy and magical splendor.

"This literary novel has the seal of determined originality, and is the admirable work of an author worth following." El Cultural

"The author is calling out to a society that has lost its sense of direction, and the pages of his book trace a path back to innocence. I cannot describe the beauty of his prose without spoiling it." El Periódico

"With a sensuous style that produces an almost physical effect, Astur plays with time, land and violence to weave together a plot that finds its logic in chaos like every real tragedy." ABC Cultural

"Brutality and derision mixed with tenderness and innocence... It's all a miracle." La Razón

Manuel Astur is a Spanish author and journalist selected as "One of the Ten Most Interesting New Voices in Europe" by the European Union. He has written novels and collections of short stories and poetry and teaches literature at the Escuela de Letras de Gijón.

Claire Wadie has a Masters in Translation from the University of Bristol and won the Peirene Stevns Translation Prize for Of Saints and Miracles by Manuel Astur.