The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-five Minutes in History and Imagination

In February 1981, Spain was still emerging from Franco's long shadow, holding a democratic vote for the new prime minister. On the day of the vote in parliament, while the session was being broadcast live on radio and filmed by television cameras, a band of right-wing soldiers, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tejero, burst in with automatic weapons, ordering everyone to get down. Only three men defied the order: Adolfo Suarez, outgoing prime minister and a democratic reformer; Guttierez Mellado, Suarez's deputy and a retired general who had sought to modernize the armed forces; and Santiago Carillo, head of the Communist Party, who never put down his cigarette. For 35 minutes, the television cameras continued to roll, and Cercas' vivid descriptions of the live footage are used to frame the narrative. That the attempted coup was later televised guaranteed, as Cercas writes, "both its reality and its unreality." In The Anatomy of a Moment, Cercas traverses that thin line between history and art, as he did so successfully in his Spanish Civil War novel Soldiers of Salamis. Thirty years later, brief clips of the coup are still shown every February on Spanish television, and the country celebrates how it stood up for democracy. This novel has already caused a sensation in Spain, with its fresh view of a definitive national moment. While English readers may not be familiar with the story, The Anatomy of a Moment, in this translation by Anne McLean, stands resolutely on its own as a brilliant literary work.

Javier Cercas is the author of Soldiers of Salamis (which sold more than a million copies worldwide). The Tenant and the Motive, and The Speed of Light. He has taught at the University of Illinois and for many years was a lecturer in Spanish literature at the University of Gerona. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages.