The Germans

Monsters do exist, but not as we imagine them. They hide amongst people, using clothes and make-up to conceal their true nature. The narrator of this book is one of them. He suffers from a skin condition that forces him to avoid beaches and light summer clothes. So, he projects himself into the lives of other ‘monsters’ with the same condition. Human skin is the body’s largest organ and constitutes the image we present to the outside world. It reveals one’s race, age, experiences, and even character; it both encloses us and introduces us to others. The lives of many recognisable figures – such as Stalin, Escobar, Updike, Nabokov, and even Scorsese’s cinematic heroes – have been shaped by their scarred skin. Their adventures, alongside those of the narrator, reveal more about the role of outward appearance, grooming, the excessive use of pharmaceuticals, and their connection to racism and class discrimination. These stories speak of a human experience: the fear of revealing to others who we really are. [Read what Maria Palaiologou wrote on our blog about the translation of the book.](https://ikarosbooks.gr/blog/i-maria-paleologou-gia-ti-metafrasi-tou-vivliou-to-derma-tou-sergio-del-molino)

In 1916, in the midst of the First World War, two ships carrying more than six hundred Germans arrive at the port of Cádiz from Cameroon. The Germans, who had surrendered to the neutral Spanish colonial authorities on the border between Cameroon and Guinea, would also settle in Zaragoza, where they would form a small, economically prosperous community. Among them were the great-grandparents of Eva and Fede Suster. Almost a century later, these two last descendants of a dynasty of butchers would bury their older brother, Gabi, in the town’s German cemetery. With masterfully escalating suspense, the novel deals with one of the most shameful and least known episodes in Spanish history: how, while on the run, Nazi officials found refuge in the country and contributed significantly to the rise of neo-Nazism in Germany. With admirable subtlety, through four gripping first-person accounts, Del Molino captures the hell into which family life can sometimes descend, posing uncomfortable questions: Are the sins of the parents ever erased? And are their descendants perhaps obliged to redeem them from these? ‘An exceptional prose writer, capable of transforming the mundane into something compelling with nothing but verbal precision and imaginative phrasing as his weapons.’ ―El Cultural