Wounded by the Wind

The year is 1978. The author is a boy of fifteen who has just returned from boarding school to his home town of Xinzo de Limia in the province of Ourense, Galicia. This town on the River Limia - identified by Roman soldiers with the mythical River Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness - is famous for two things: its prolonged carnival celebrations, during which affable demons known as pantallas patrol the town's streets, banging together inflated pig bladders, and frogs. It is also inhabited by...