"Rodoreda had bedazzled me by the sensuality with which she reveals things within the atmosphere of her novels."Gabriel Garcia Márquez-----Considered by many to be the grand achievement of her later period, DEATH IN SPRING is one of Mercè Rodoredas most complex and beautifully constructed works. The novel tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless town through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy. The boy struggles to come to terms with the rhyme and reason of the towns ritual violence, and with his wild, teenaged stepmother, who becomes his playmate. By developing the relationships between the boy and the townspeople, and examining the towns rituals, Rodoreda portrays a fully-articulated, though quite disturbing, society.The horrific rituals, however, stand in stark contrast to the novels stunningly poetic language and lush descriptionsDEATH IN SPRING is musical and rhythmic, and it is truly the work of a writer at the height of her powers.A book for the ages, DEATH IN SPRING can be read as a metaphor for Francos Spain (or any oppressed society), or as a mythological quest novel. Similar to Shirley Jacksons work (especially The Lottery), and featuring the imaginative qualities of Raymond Roussels Impressions of Africa, Rodoredas last novel is a bold, ambitious statement, and a fitting capstone to her remarkable career.-----About the author: Mercè Rodoreda (19081983) is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Rodoreda began writing short stories as an escape from an unhappy early marriage, and in the early 1930s she began publishing political articles and wrote four early novels. Exiled in France and Switzerland following the Spanish Civil War, Rodoreda began writing the novels and short stories (Twenty-two Short Stories, The Time of the Doves, Camellia Street, Garden by the Sea) that would eventually make her internationally famous, while at the same time earning a living as a seamstress. In the mid-1960s, she returned to Catalonia, where she continued to write. DEATH IN SPRING was published posthumously, and is translated into English for the first time here.