The Family of Pascual Duarte

“The Family of Pascual Duarte” is the story of Pascual Duarte–a Spanish peasant born into a brutal world of poverty, hatred, and depravity–as told from his prison cell, where he awaits execution for the murders he’s committed throughout his lifetime. Despite his savage and cruel impulses, Pascual retains a childlike sense of the world and a groping desire to understand the blows of fate that led him down his bloody path.

Originally published in the same year as Camus’s “The Stranger”–to which it has been compared–“The Family of Pascual Duarte” is closer in tone to the works of Curzio Malaparte and Louis-Ferdinand C?line.