Carlos Giménez’s autobiographical account of the plight of children in post-World War II Fascist Spain has won virtually every comics award in Europe, including Best Album at the 1981 Angoulême Festival, and Angoulême’s Heritage Award in 2010.
Paracuellos is a work of great courage, created at a time when telling the truth about Spain's political past could get one killed. Its publication precipitated constant death threats from right-wing groups.
Author photo from the 1982 Spanish edition of Paracuellos.
“Carlos Giménez uses his mastery of the comic strip medium to create a new paradigm that establishes a dialogue between history and memory, and converts it into a demand for moral justice.” — From the Afterword by Carmen Moreno-Nuño, University of Kentucky “A powerful and heartrending book…a compelling product of a post-dictatorship era. “ —Sarah D. Harris, Bennington College
CARLOS GIMÉNEZ was born in Madrid in
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His other non-fiction works include the trilogy Spain United, Great, and Free (a chronicle of the political transition after Franco’s death), Barrio (tales of his teenaged years after leaving the orphanage), and The Professionals (his much lauded inside story of the Spanish comics scene in the 1960s). In 2003 Giménez was recognized with the Gold Medal in Fine Arts by Spain’s Ministry of Culture.
“The stories transcend just being about a historical moment in Spain. Their humanity will speak to everyone. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, these timeless works rank with the finest that comics has to offer, standing shoulder to shoulder with the best of Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner.” — William Stout, artist and illustrator HISTORY/GRAPHIC NOVELS
CARLOS GIMÉNEZ
1941. His first series in comics was Drake & Drake, followed by the popular Gringo, Delta 99, and Dani Futuro. It was with the publication of his powerful and moving tales of childhood in Franco’s Spain—Paracuellos in 1977 and Paracuellos 2 in 1982 (collected here in one volume)—that Giménez made the transition from craftsman to artist.
P A R A C U E L L O S
In the late 1930s when Spanish fascists led by Francisco Franco, and aided by Hitler and Mussolini, overthrew the democratically elected government, almost 200,000 men and women fell in battle, were executed, or died in prison. Their orphaned children— and others ripped from the homes of the defeated—were shuttled from State and Church-run “Home” to “Home” and fed a steady diet of torture and disinformation by a totalitarian state bent on making them “productive” citizens. Carlos Giménez was one of those children. In 1975, after Franco’s death, Carlos began to tell his story. Breaking the code of silence proved to be a milestone, both for the comics medium and for a country coming to terms with its past. EuroComics is proud to present this longawaited English translation of a comics masterpiece.
Placing the comics in historical perspective are illustrated essays by Carmen MorenoNuño, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky, and Antonio Martin, the foremost historian of Spanish comics.