Puerto Hurraco: The Spectacle of Horror

The true story behind the massacre that left an indelible mark on Spain’s collective memory.

On August 26, 1990, in the hamlet of Puerto Hurraco (Badajoz, Spain), brothers Emilio and Antonio Izquierdo, armed with hunting shotguns, walked through the village streets, firing indiscriminately at anyone who crossed their path. The attack left nine people dead and twelve injured, among them two young girls.

The massacre was the final chapter in a long history of hatred between two families, the Izquierdos and the Cabanillas, and had been preceded by numerous violent incidents that might have served as warnings of what was to come. Yet no one was able to foresee the tragedy.

The crime took place in the same year that Spain’s first private television networks were launched, and media coverage of the events was marked by exaggeration, falsehoods, and sensationalism. The press of the time transformed a complex real-life tragedy into a bloody serial drama, linking it to the stereotype of a backward, illiterate, and violent rural Spain, the so-called Black Spain.

Drawing on exhaustive research and documentation, Luis Roso crafts a work of literary journalism that dismantles many of the myths surrounding both the crime and the notion of Black Spain. He reconstructs the events as they truly happened while also exposing those who sought to turn the tragedy into a spectacle for public consumption.