Living in Madrid, Rubén David González Gallego writes in Russian. And not only because, as the grandson of a prominent Spanish communist, he spent his childhood in the Soviet Union. In his view, only the “great and mighty” can adequately convey what happened in children’s homes for people with disabilities in the USSR. His brilliant literary debut—an autobiographical novel in stories, “White on Black”—which became a sensation even with its journal publication, is devoted to describing this horror.
Publishers envy those who will read it for the first time. First of all, the book is very funny: the author, like no one else, knows how to find the ridiculous in the terrible. Secondly, he managed to convert personal experience into genuine art—if, of course, we consider as art what helps you live.