A novel about the search for one's own identity between two cultures, an examination of Spanish history under Franco. A homage to the first Spanish, so-called guest workers.

Spain 1995. In the forgotten village of Vallehermoso in the Sierra Nevada, inhabited by a few quirky old people, Clara meets her aunt Rosalía. She tells her about her brother José, Clara's father, who was disowned by her German family, and she tells her about his daughter Esperanza. Esperanza was abducted as a small child and the family has been unable to find out what happened to her for the past three decades. Clara can't believe Rosalía, her accounts sound too crazy. But an old gardener tells her about the Catholic convent La Misericordia, where Esperanza disappeared and from which she was "carried out again five weeks later in the arms of the honourable Doña Matilda Sepúlveda".

Clara goes in search of her sister Esperanza. She learns that in Francoist Spain at least 300,000 children were taken away from their often politically left-wing orientated parents. Many were declared dead and disappeared into Catholic institutions. The parents were deprived of custody. The children were given new names, entered in the register under this identity and put up for adoption. In this way, every trace of their origins was lost.

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Author: Cornelia Becker