Tras una inexplicable explosión en el Prime Tower de Suiza, a 278 kilómetros del Colisionador de Hadrones, Javier, un arquitecto de 43 años, aparece en una plataforma de mármol en mitad del océano. Allí le espera Clive, un enigmático anfitrión que le propondrá un reto como precio a su libertad: únicamente podrá abandonar esa prisión en mitad de la Nada cuando entienda el porqué de su cautiverio. Las preguntas que planteará Javier y las inteligentes respuestas que obtendrá de Clive diseñarán un fascinante viaje de conocimiento, concluyendo en un asombroso y revelador final.

A series of essays by Edward M. Wilson, originally published in 1980, and written at various stages of his career.

This dictionary assembles 3,246 English proverbs and thousands of equivalents in five national Romance languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. The Dictionary is a very useful reference tool for scholars of these languages, for researchers working in various associated fields such as linguistics, literature, folklore, anthropology, psychology, sociology, history, and for workers in newer areas such as advertising and contemporary media. The Dictionary is also of benefit to diplomats and politicians who try to improve their communication by sharing ideas formulated in some common meaningful expressions; it will assist interpreters and translators, and teachers and students for whom it is important to understand not only what the target culture expresses in the same way as their own, but also what is formulated in a different way. Finally, the Dictionary will be of great interest to non-professionals who, for the sheer enjoyment of it, wish to savour the wisdom, wit, poetry and the colourful language of proverbs.

Everything in Its Place: The Life and Works of Virgilio Pinera: is a seminal book that fills a major gap in Cuban and Latin American literary criticism. In addition to being the most comprehensive study to date of the life and work of Virgilio Pinera, this is the first book in English on this major twentieth-century Cuban author. In this study Thomas F. Anderson draws extensively on unpublished manuscripts and diverse critical writings, bringing new insights into how Pinera's works responded to key literary influences as well as events in his life and in Cuban political and cultural history.

How does a totalitarian government influence the arts, and how do the arts respond? Spanish Film Under Franco raises these important questions, giving English speakers a starting point in their study of Spanish cinema. After a brief overview of Spanish film before Franco, the author proceeds to a discussion of censorship as practiced by the Franco regime. The response of directors to censorship—the “franquista aesthetic,” or “aesthetic of repression,” with its highly metaphorical, oblique style—is explored in the works of Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura, Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis García Berlanga, and other important directors. Virginia Higginbotham combines historical perspective with detailed critical analysis and interpretation of many famous Franco-era films. She shows how directors managed to evade the censors and raise public awareness of issues relating to the Spanish Civil War and the repressions of the Franco regime. Film has always performed an educational function in Spain, reaching masses of poor and uneducated citizens. And sometimes, as this study also reveals, Spanish film has been ignored when the questions it raised became too painful or demanding. The author concludes with a look at post-Franco cinema and the directions it has taken. For anyone interested in modern Spanish film, this book will be essential reading.