The confessions of Senora Francesca Navarro and other stories

"In her new collection, Natalie L. M. Petesch immerses readers in the lives of people caught up in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, which left more than five hundred thousand dead. She captures the hand-to-mouth existence of two war orphans on the streets of Madrid; an old soldier's memories of a fallen militiawoman; the dilemma of Franco's laundress as she seeks to duplicate a stolen religious icon she finds in his home; and a man's struggle to find his bride among thousands of Republican refugees waiting for ships to evacuate them before Franco's Fascists arrive to kill them." "In the title novella, an elderly woman describes to her granddaughter how the families of Franco's officers fighting against Republican militiamen endured hunger, filth, and danger in an underground fortress."--BOOK JACKET.