El camino

At eleven years old, Daniel the Sparrow senses that his path lies in the village, with his friends, his people, and his birds. But his father wants him to go to the city to study for his baccalaureate. Throughout the night before his departure, Daniel, sleepless and with a lump in his throat, reminisces about his adventures with his friends—Roque the Dung Beetle and Germán the Mangy—through the fields, discovering the sky and the earth, and relives the stories of the simple villagers. The human warmth with which this childlike perspective introduces us to the village, revealing an impressive array of characters, and the powerful way in which, through often caricatured traits, they are always presented clearly and vividly, is one of the novel's greatest strengths.