Translated by Sonia Soto
Internationally celebrated author Almudena Grandes has produced her finest work yet with The Wind from the East, a blend of two narratives set alternately in Madrid and an Andalusian town by the sea. Sara Gómez Morales, given up at birth to be raised by her wealthy godmother, is betrayed on her sixteenth birthday when she is forced to leave her godmother’s home and return to live in poverty with her estranged parents. Tortured by resentment and the loneliness of belonging to neither place, she finds solace as an adult only when she moves to the coastal town.
Parallel to Sara’s story is the story of Juan and Damian Olmedo, brothers in love with the same woman. Suspected of murdering his younger brother, Juan flees to the same village that served as Sara’s escape. Deftly engaging, The Wind from the East is an epic tale of love and redemption. Almudena Grandes' writing has been compared to the work of classic and contemporary voices such as the Brontë sisters and Isabel Allende.
At the age of twenty-nine ALMUDENA GRANDES won the Premio La Sonrisa Vertical for Las edades de Lulú (The Ages of Lulu) in 1989. The cinematic adaptation, starring Javier Bardem, was released the following year. Grandes is now one of Spain’s best-selling authors, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. A regular commentator, Grandes has written for such publications as the Guardian, El País, and the New Yorker. She is also the author of The Wind from the East and lives in Madrid.
