Resistance

Rosa Aneiros' novel Resistance is an epic of contemporary Galician literature that follows the fortunes of two very different people during the Estado Novo, the authoritarian regime in Portugal under António Salazar and Marcello Caetano that lasted from 1933 to 1974. Dinis Cardoso is a glass-factory worker from a small fishing village on Portugal's west coast, São Pedro de Moel. He will be conscripted for the Colonial War in Mozambique. An attempt to stand up for workers' rights will land him in the infamous Peniche political prison. Filipa Rodrigues is a privileged girl growing up in Coimbra. Her father, Rui Rodrigues, is a successful importer of goods who has made his own fortune. He leans politically towards the right, but his daughter's activities in the resistance will force the family to flee to Brazil. Sometimes events take precedence over our own wishes - our paths diverge, seemingly never to meet again - and memories are like the breakers on São Pedro de Moel beach, pulled under and out to sea. The novel examines political events in Portugal during the twentieth century, and the influence these events had on ordinary people, in a way that is strikingly reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Rosa Aneiros has won important literary prizes in Galicia, including the Xerais for novels and the Jules Verne (Caixa Galicia Foundation) for young people's literature. Four of her works are already available in English: the trilogy I Love You Leo A., which describes the travels of Leo after she finishes university; and Butterfly Wings, a portrayal of the miscellaneous characters that fill a café in Santiago de Compostela. Resistance won the San Clemente Prize for best novel in the Galician language.