Liturgia de difuntos

The conquest of Granada in 1492 meant not only the expulsion of the Arabs from the Spanish kingdom, but also the starting point of a fierce persecution against Jews. That same year, Mosé ben Aberatel, a famous Sephardite senator, was forced to abandon the land of his ancestors, and to begin an errant life throughout Europe, joining in this way in the Jewish Diaspora. Some years later, some of his children returned to the Iberian Peninsula and succeeded in living as false converted to Catholicism or as true Catholics, renouncing his past life. One of them, Alonso de Tordecillas, lived as a fervent Catholic until his brother, unable to renounce his religion, was condemned to the stake. From that moment Alonso de Tordecillas is uncertain about his new faith and becomes strongly interested in discovering his roots. But he feels under the siege of a mysterious man, Nuño de la Cueva, an informer of the Santo Oficio...

Liturgy of the Dead is a story of intrigue, espionage and accusations written in the style of a black novel. But it is also an epic narration on homelessness and exile. Nowadays, when the struggle among cultures seems to get worse and worse, when the search for security places so many obstacles to individual freedom, it is worth reading the first novel of Fernando Toledo.