Metal of the Dead

A complex novel with an epic cast of characters, Concha Espina's 'The Metal of the Dead' offers a documentary account of the events leading up to the 1917 workers' strike against the unfair labor practices of the Rio Tinto Ltd., the multinational conglomerate managing Spain's oldest copper mine. Intertwined with a detailed chronicle of social unrest and highly technical descriptions of the mines' geological structure and of different mining operations, are the romantic relationships of three feminine protagonists: Aurora, an angelic young woman from Spain's northern highlands, who is engaged to Gabriel Suarez, a miner who becomes an anarchist; Rosario, a newspaper reporter from Madrid, who falls in love with Aurelio Echea, the Socialist union leader, who, like several other characters in the novel, is based on a real-life figure; and Casilda, a passionate Andalusian beauty, who, like Bizet's Carmen, spurns the man who loves her, while yearning for one who resists her charms.