El Chico de Mercaderes: A Tale of Migration, Memory, and the Spanish Civil War’s Echoes
The debut novel, Merchant Boy, edited by Libros Indie, follows a young man who finds himself steering through the turbulent 1930s. Forced to seek a new life, he leaves Galicia as a prosperous Havana beckons yet dark shores await. His voyage becomes a double passage across the Atlantic, driven by political disarray and social upheaval that reshape two continents and a family’s fate.
Told in the first person singular, the narrative invites readers to connect with a recent past through the eyes of a child who grows into responsibility. The voice shifts from innocence to adulthood, guiding readers through landscapes that feel distant today but were real not long ago. The plot draws on true events, with elements borrowed from the author’s family history—memories of a grandfather who fought in the Spanish Civil War and left behind writings before his passing—infusing the tale with a sense of lived experience and personal testimony.
In an effort to move beyond binary judgments and stereotypes, the novel presents nameless, ordinary characters who weave through a broader historical tapestry. It seeks to illuminate the people who lived offstage, whose lives intersect with grand political debates yet remain rooted in everyday struggles and quiet courage.
El Chico de Mercaderes premiered at the Centro Gallego in Havana, today housed within the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater complex and the Cuban National Ballet. The event gathered members of the largest Spanish immigrant community in Cuba, underscoring the enduring ties between two shores and the shared memory that survives through literature.
Libros Indie positions itself as a publisher devoted to discovering independent literary voices. The house has developed a distinctive talent-detection approach, known as the Indie Method, designed to identify and nurture emerging writers. Through exclusive agreements with several major Spanish publishing houses, Libros Indie continues to expand its catalog and aims to grow into a premier pool of authors.
The author, born in As Pontes de García Rodríguez in 1984, is a journalist who began his career in Madrid after moving there in 2002 to study Information Sciences. Since then, the professional focus has ranged from economic reporting to corporate communications, enriching the perspective brought to this literary project. The narrative is informed by a journalist’s eye for detail and a storyteller’s sensibility for human emotion, grounding the historical setting in vivid, lived experience.
Technical page of the job
Number of pages: 206
Publisher: Independent Books
Language: Spanish
Binding: soft cover
ISBN: 9788417721343
Place of publication: Madrid