THAT GIRL

THAT GIRL is a ghost story set in Granada at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Rocío, a twelve-year-old girl from Madrid, arrives in Granada on Saturday, July 11, 1936, one week ahead of her summer vacation with her parents. She stays at her grandmother Rosario's house, located across from the Alhambra's walls, in the Campo de los Mártires, just behind a hotel that is still in operation today.When the Civil War erupts, the girl's parents are forced to remain in Madrid. As a result, grandmother and granddaughter find themselves completely alone-almost isolated-in a paradisiacal mountain home. As the story unfolds, we witness the deep affection and complicity between them. Death, and the narrative voices of the dead, gradually take over the novel, making the afterlife its central theme.Rocío knows that she-and only she-can see the dead, who appear to her as specters she helps despite her young age. The novel reveals the nature of the afterlife all the way to its final page, on Thursday, August 27, 1936, by which time we have encountered, among others, Federico García Lorca-both alive and dead-and the boy Nicolás, inspired by the remains found in April 2024 in grave number 16 during the exhumations at the Víznar ravine.In THAT GIRL, Antonio Gálvez Alcaide offers a new twist on the theme of the afterlife, a subject he first explored in 1999 with the publication of his novel THE SNAILS' PROMENADE (EL PASEO DE LOS CARACOLES).