The River

During the Spanish Civil War, the River Jarama was the scene of a bloody, month-long battle, which ended in a stalemate. The Republicans suffered about 25,000 casualties and the Nationalists 20,000. In the novel, set nearly twenty years later, the Jarama has become a favourite picnic spot for those wanting to escape the Madrid heat. The novel describes one boiling hot day in August. Various groups of people from Madrid - young and old, married and single - have gone down to the River Jarama to swim and to picnic. During the course of the day, they talk, flirt, get drunk, argue and, mostly, make their peace, and the novel carries the reader effortlessly from conversation to conversation, allowing us to eavesdrop on the characters' very ordinary and profoundly recognisable lives.

Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, one of Spain's most celebrated novelists, was born in Rome in 1927. His books include The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhui (1951), and The Jarama (1956), which won the Spanish National Critics' Prize. He won the Cervantes Prize in 2004.

Margaret Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers. She won the 1992 Portuguese Translation Prize and her translation of Eca de Queiroz's The Relic was shortlisted for the 1996 prize; with Javier Marias, she wonthe 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the 2000 Weidenfeld Translation Prize .