Blind Sunflowers - Alberto Mendes

Writer Alberto Mendes passed away before witnessing the success of his only literary work, Blind Sunflowers. His death was the embodiment of the theme of his novel, which ranged between memory and pain. A novel about defeated and distressed personalities, a captured soldier, a fugitive poet, a monk who falls in love with a woman while her husband hides in a closet. It contains four chapters and four defeats for different characters. The novel brilliantly illuminates a dark stage in the history of Spain, with its horrors and atrocities, as it exposed the baseness of some, and the moral elevation of others.

Facts and details intertwine in the novel to provide us with an image of the civil war in Spain, and of the phase of Francoist tyranny in its human dimensions and its impact on individual destinies.

Memory and pain are central themes in the novel, which is characterized by simple details at times, deep and violent emotions, and its bitter struggle with its past and experiences at other times.

Despite the dark atmosphere that dominates the novel, there is a remarkable celebration of creativity and creators, through personalities including the poet, the translator, and the painter.

The “blind sunflowers” are among the classic Spanish novels that won the admiration and attention of critics. It also received a lot of attention and won several awards.

Number of pages of the novel: 213