Retaule en gris

The Spanish Civil War has undoubtedly marked the lives of many people and it is reflected even in literature. Amat-Piniella, a very promising writer, faced the post-war trauma and it is shows in ‘Retaule en gris’.

This collection of stories depicts the atmosphere of mediocrity that reigned after the Civil War, the feeling of failure and impossibility to lead a decent life that the war instilled in the survivors. Workers who live in misery, female sex workers who struggle for survival, and unhappy, frustrated writers, stuck in a tedious life – those are the characters that populate the pages of this work.

Joaquim Amat-Piniella (Manresa, 1913 – Bellvitge, Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1974) was a writer and intellectual who was imprisoned for five years in the Mauthausen concentration camp, which he describes in his novel ‘K.L. Reich’, a classic of the concentration camps literature.