Las Voces del Estrecho

Sorel is a prolific biographer and historian whose subjects include Federico Garcia Lorca and Miguel Hern ndez (poets murdered during the Spanish civil war), the Cuban revolution, and other politically charged themes. This, one of his few novels, has a similarly political agenda. In recent years, countless African refugees have died attempting to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to get into Spain, turning it into a border-crossing more deadly than the Rio Grande. In this novel, ghosts of Moroccan and other African refugees, the victims of poverty, storms, police, and prejudice, recount their tragic stories to a survivor who tends their graves. This is a powerful, lyric testimony of desperation and suffering that also explores the historical and cultural links between Spain and North Africa. Once these points are made, however, the novel becomes repetitive; the characters are mere sketches, and there is little plot development. Recommended only for academic libraries with extensive Spanish literature collections. Lynn Shirey, Harvard Coll. Lib., Cambridge, MA