Spanish / Venezuela
Los distintos
(The different ones)
Montañés, Mónica
(text)
Sánchez Gómez, Eva
(illus.)
Caracas [et al.]: Ediciones Ekaré, 2020. – 48 p.
ISBN 978-84-121636-1-2
Spanish Civil War | Fascism | Exclusion | Political persecution | Migration | History 1935-1958
Reading age: 9+
White Ravens issue: 2021
Told in just under fifty pages, this is the story of a family that is alienated and ostracized in their own country and eventually seeks a new start elsewhere. The father is first to leave the country during the Spanish Civil War because he opposes the victorious fascists and needs to get himself to safety. A decade later, his wife and two children join him to Venezuela. What happens in the interim is described in short episodes told from the perspectives of siblings Paco and Socorro in alternating sequence. As the book title implies, the story is about being “Othered”, being excluded and facing open rejection in even the smallest matters. The unglamorous yet still stirring portrayal of everyday experiences – the withholding of a ration book, the oppressive feeling of needing to make oneself small and invisible, or the longing to belong – lend this touching story a deeply human, universal character. [JW]