Galego | English

Young Adults

A Cova das Vacas Mortas

By Jaureguizar

About this book

Xoel is a young man who lives in Negueira de Muñiz with his mother of German origin in a commune in the hamlet of Foxo, near the dam of Salime. He is fed up with his life and dreams of leaving and boarding a tanker. Xoel’s life changes one day when his grandfather, a widower and Alzheimer victim, arrives from Berlin to rejoin his daughter. His luggage includes a bag full of rolls of super 8 film. The old man tells him that he worked with the controversial and amazing German film director Leni Riefenstahl, who was accused of being a Nazi supporter. During these days Xoel also meets Iria, the daughter of one of the owners of the houses of Foxo, who started claiming their rights over the houses occupied by squatters when a road was built to access the area. Theirs is a love between rivals. Iria agrees with the claims of the old owners of Foxo over their property and is also very critical of Nazism and any support for this regime, even with Xoel’s grandfather’s work on the the Nazi films.

Book fragment

The water never rises over Negueira de Muñiz, despite the fact that the village sits near a dam. On the other side there is Foxo, Ernes and other places that were occupied by hippy squatters in the seventies. At the bottom of the valley there is a huge stone, Guipelbolfe, where wolves climb up to howl in moonlit nights. The neighbours on both sides no longer fear the water flooding their houses because the water never rises over Negueira. There was only one time when it did, half a century ago, when they opened the dam of Grandas de Salime. The water rose at once, flooding all the villages in the valley. The authorities under Franco told the people that they had to leave so that people that lived further away, beyond A Fonsagrada, and even beyond Grandas, could have electricity. The inhabitants of Negueira also needed it, but nobody told them why they had to lose their houses and land in order to have a milking machine and a television. All they knew was that they had to follow Franco's orders and leave their old lives behind to settle the deserted lands of A Terra Cha. .