The Winter of the Tiger

Andreu Carranza

“El Invierno del Tigre” goes into the character of this character and, at the same time, reflects many aspects of that period of far-reaching change in social stratification: the disendowment; the auctioning off of common lands and church property; the traumatic transition to modernity; the bourgeois revolution that never happened and cost a hundred years of cruel civil wars. In the novel, the author looks at a man who starts with nothing and, from defeat to defeat, manages, in a few years, to achieve the highest military distinctions, as he provides the reader with a portrait of a hero who, with his light and shade, is the model of a Romantic man producing from within himself an entire personal legend coinciding with the end of an era: the Ancien Regime. “El Invierno del Tigre”, in the words of La Vanguardia’s literary critic Julià Guillamon “...is an exercise in historical restoration focused on episodes of the First Carlist War: from young Cabrera’s baptism of fire in November 1833 until the capitulation of Morella in May 1840. A very worthwhile historical novel...” The Tortosa poet, Gerard Vergés, in the pages of the newspaper Avui, (5/11/2005) says: “Andreu Carranza, author of the very notable novel “El invierno del Tigre”, which tells of the life of the Carlist General Ramon Cabrera...”. Estanislau Vidal-Folch, in the “Crítica” pages of El Periódico says: “Andreu Carranza has written a captivating flash-back novel...” ‘El invierno del Tigre’ has awakened a lively interest, not only among Catalan readers but also among those from the rest of Spain. It receives a positive mention from Sergi Doria, in ABC’s literary supplement “Blanco y negro”. He says: “If the Americans had inherited Spain’s turbulent 19th century, Hollywood wouldn’t have been able to cope...” It has been mentioned by El Punt, Diari de Tarragona, the magazine Presència, La Veu de l’Ebre, El Temps, El País, La Razón, Levante, and even El Federal, the Carlist newspaper devoted its back page to talking about “El Invierno del Tigre”. A year after its publication, the author is still making presentations inside and outside the area where it is set: Tivissa, October 2005; Vallibona, summer 2005...

Andreu Carranza

Andreu Carranza, born in Ascó (1957), lives in Flix (Ribera d’Ebre). He contributes to La Vanguardia, Presència and La Veu de l’Ebre. He is author of the works La tinta de la immortalitat (The ink of immortality) (Recull Prize 1991), Aigua de València, El desert de l’oblit (Water from Valencia, the desert of oblivion) (Ribera d’Ebre Prize 1993), Trilogia del deliri, Riu Avall (Trilogy of delirium, Downstream) (Sebastià Juan Arbó Prize 1995), Llibre de les set xibeques, Anjub (Book of the Seven Barn Owls, Anjub) (Sant Joan Prize 2000), A Mumpare, La filla de la Memòria (To Mumpare, the Daughter of Memory (Vila d’Ascó Prize)