''Victus, the Fall of Barcelona'' is a

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to oth ...

by the Catalan

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Albert Sánchez Piñol Albert Sánchez Piñol (; born 11 July 1965) is a Spanish anthropologist, non-fiction writer and novelist writing in Catalan and Spanish. He has been described as a "significant European writer". Theroux, Marcel (19 December 2005)"Cold Skin" ...

published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

in September 2014. It is based in the fictitious biography of the Lieutenant Colonel Marti Zuviria who, being 98, tells from

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

his memories as an engineer serving the commander

Antoni de Villarroel Antonio de Villarroel y Pelaez (1656, Barcelona – 1726, A Coruña) was a Spanish military commander in the service of Philip V until 1710 in the War of the Spanish Succession. After the disgrace of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, under whom ...

during the

War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict fought between 1701 and 1714. The immediate cause was the death of the childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700, which led to a struggle for control of the Spanish E ...

, especially during the Siege of Barcelona. The book was written originally in Spanish, but was quickly translated into Catalan and many other languages, including English. Since its original publication in October 2012, the book has sold more than 200,000 copies either in Catalan or Spanish, and the rights of translation have been sold for the book to be translated into Russian, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, French, Korean, and Croatian. In 2015, the author published the novel's sequel, '' Vae Victus''

Controversy

On September the 4, 2014, the book's launch ceremony in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

was cancelled because of pressures coming from the Spanish Embassy in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, who declared the ceremony as "sensitive for the political moment" and blamed the book for "historical distortion" in favour of the independentist Catalonian movement. Juliette van Wersch, the Dutch editor of ''Victus'', described the fact as censorship, but avoiding any comment about the alleged historical distortion.

References

External links

* 2012 novels Spanish-language novels War of the Spanish Succession in fiction {{2010s-hist-novel-stub