The Forest Is Big and Deep

A traveller, Hans Meyer, has decided not to enlist. He enters the forest from the City. He comes to a village where he is led to an empty shack and given food. He helps sow a field. The pig slaughterer, old and hunchbacked, tells him they need more brandy and sends him to fetch some from the distiller. Meyer finds the distiller, who lives in a cabin in the forest, and together they make brandy. The distiller tells him about another village five days further east from there, a commune where they share everything and there are lots of young women. On the way to the commune, the traveller takes refuge in a cave, where he meets a hunter. The hunter teaches him how to use his shotgun to catch hares. Out in the snow, the traveller meets three women, who take him to their cabin and sleep with him. When he reaches the commune, he is put to shovelling snow, chopping wood and fetching water. He becomes a slave. When the snow melts, he leaves the commune. Despite the hostility of the surroundings, there is something that has made the traveller abandon the City. He says he is fleeing from night and war. In cinematic sequences, the author leads the reader ever deeper into the forest. The Forest Is Big and Deep is like a textual film, or a cinematic text, that explores human nature, desire, freedom, and the urge to explore the unknown that has defined human history in terms of conquest and migration, themes that resonate in the world we live in.

Manuel Darriba (Sarria, 1973) has worked as a journalist, publisher, scriptwriter and film director. He received the Fernández del Riego Award for Literary Journalism in 2012. In the field of poetry, he has won the Espiral Maior and the González Garcés Awards. The Forest Is Big and Deep is his seventh novel and was shortlisted for the Casino de Santiago Award for European Novels. His work has been compared to that of Kafka and Carver.