Soldiers of Salamis

Cercas used journalistic investigation as the scaffolding of a novel that ends up asking what it means to be courageous. The real figure of Rafael Sánchez Mazas and the militiaman who chose not to kill him form the centre of a reflection on the memory of the war that avoids the usual simplifications. The narrative choice to include himself as a character was risky and it works. One of the recent Spanish novels that has aged best.