Montserrat Roig's classic novel, The Time of Cherries, captures a sort of still point in the history of Barcelona' a moment that came before great change. When the novel ends, no one has any idea that within 18 months, Francisco Franco, the old dictator, will be gone. The Time of Cherries was originally published in Catalan in 1976, the year after Franco died. Half a century later, Roig's excavation of family life in a period of historical flux is now available in English in the United States for the first time. The Time of Cherries became an essential book in post-Franco Catalonia. It appeared at a time when there were few images of the culture whose youth had cast off Franco long before 1975. The novel is infused not only with an array of vivid characters but also with a sharply detailed vision of middle-class Barcelona before democracy was restored. The book revolves around Natalia, once a student activist and now nearly age 40, as she deals with unfinished business: her...
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