Memoirs of a Peasant Boy (148 pages), first published in Buenos Aires in 1961, is one of the first best-sellers of Galician literature, having been translated into some twenty languages and sold more than half a million copies. It tells the experiences of a peasant boy, Balbino, the son of a tenant farmer growing up in the rural Galicia of the 1930s and 1940s.

Memoirs of a Peasant Boy is divided into sixteen short chapters and is written in the voice of Balbino as a kind of diary. In the first, we are introduced to the main character, Balbino, a boy from the village, a nobody, who gets up at two or three in the morning to take the cattle to graze. The village is a mixture of mud and smoke, and he longs to escape in order to discover the world. The children in the village run around after firecrackers, they even laugh sometimes, but they are sad. This is why Balbino writes a diary, where he can record his feelings and empty his heart. It’s a kind of conversation with himself: he just hopes no one discovers the diary and turns it into a book!

In chapter 2, Balbino is lost, and his mother and aunt are looking for him. His father has beaten him for smearing the landlord’s son, Manolito, with soot, but doesn’t want to know what Manolito did to him first. They are tenant farmers, and Balbino is tired of having to put up with the landlord’s son, a clean boy who eats wheat bread (not cornbread), drinks milk with coffee and doesn’t have to get up early to graze the cattle. Balbino is annoyed with his father; he’s sorry about upsetting his mother and aunt, but even they force him to pray. Everyone is against him, including his elder brother, Miguel, who before leaving for America pulled his hair because Balbino had rummaged in his toolbox. Eventually Balbino is discovered by their dog, Pachín. He returns to the house while everybody is out looking for him, falls asleep and at one stage wakes up to see a host of faces gazing down at him.

In chapter 3, Balbino is at a church procession. He wants to chase the firecrackers, as the other boys in the village do, but has been warned not to, in case they explode in his hands. He chases one as far as the house of the ‘Jew’, who asks him if he has come to steal peaches. When Balbino replies that this is a sin, the ‘Jew’ replies that, for the world they live in, thinking is a sin, demanding real justice is a sin, having your own ideas or searching for the truth is a sin. The village priest is not a good one, but there are other priests who, as well as catechizing children, teach them agriculture, history, geography. When Balbino’s father finds out where he has been, he beats the boy.

In chapter 4, Balbino is stuck at home. He can’t go out to enjoy the village festas or dress up for Carnival. This is because his Uncle Braulio, who came back from Africa some years before and kept the local children entertained with his stories, died in an accident, when the cart upturned on top of him, and for this reason Balbino’s family has been in mourning for the past three years. Watching from behind the window, Balbino cannot understand how people can be so happy during Carnival and so sad the following day, Ash Wednesday. He thinks people should be happy and sad for other reasons, not just because the calendar dictates that it should be so. In chapter 5, Balbino wishes that the adults would learn from the children, who have fights, but later are friends. Then they wouldn’t go to war. He suffers because his family is poor and because they have to smile at the landlord and give him half of everything they take in. But there’s always someone who’s worse off than you are. In Balbino’s case, this is Andrés, whose father is a drunk and comes back at night to beat his wife and three children. They sometimes go four days without eating, or have to hide outside at night, when it’s freezing.

In chapter 6, Balbino’s elder brother, Miguel, leaves for America. Eventually they receive a letter from him saying that he is well, wears good clothes, has Saturday afternoons off, and eats wheat bread and cheese every day. When Balbino says that he too wants to emigrate when he grows up, his father and godfather have an argument about the merits and demerits of emigrating. His godfather says that those who emigrate lose touch with their roots, often don’t get rich and adopt a kind of language it’s impossible to understand. He thinks they’d be better off staying at home, especially since it’s the young people who go, leaving behind only old people and children. In chapter 7, Pachín is Balbino’s dog, always happy, sometimes appearing to laugh. One night, a fox enters the village and makes off with nine hens. Balbino and the dog discover the fox’s stash, so the local chemist takes two of the hens and puts poison inside them as a way of taking revenge on the fox. It’s Pachín, however, who eats the poison and is killed. Balbino buries him in the ground and plants a cherry tree.

In chapter 8, there is an open-air dance in the village, but Balbino cannot go on account of the fact his family is still in mourning, so he listens to the music from his bed, dreams of dancing with the stars and, the following morning, rushes to the place where the dance was held to see if anything has been left behind. He is overjoyed to find a small, wooden box with something inside it, making a rattling noise. He decides to bury the box in some bushes. He then dreams that it contains gold coins or that he buys an aeroplane with the money and flies far away. He even takes a hoe to break the box open, but decides to leave it. That night, however, there is strong rain, which washes the box away, so he never discovers what was in it. In chapter 9, we learn about the first schoolteacher, Don Alfonso, who was from Andalusia and couldn’t understand Galician. There then came a much younger replacement, Eladia, who was from Betanzos and spoke Galician. Balbino started to attend school regularly and was even appointed by Eladia as her replacement should she be ill. He started to fall in love, but of course she had a boyfriend and later got married. Balbino gave up going to school.

In chapter 10, Balbino is allowed to accompany some of the other local boys to build a bonfire with which to celebrate St John’s Eve. The village parties all night, dancing to the sound of a bagpipe and jumping over the fire. In chapter 11, Balbino’s godfather dies, and all the neighbours come to join in the wake and organize things for Balbino’s family. Balbino stays in his room, gazing out of the window at the river, which he compares to a human’s life, striding towards the sea. He hears the bells of the church, which ring for festivities, when someone has died, when there is a fire or threshing. In the evening, Balbino is afraid to go to bed in case the deceased should appear to him, so he stays downstairs, where the mourning has turned into a gathering of people playing cards and telling stories. Balbino falls asleep and is carried to bed. He has heard that people die in wars as well, but thinks people die in the village, fighting, just the same.

In chapter 12, Balbino recalls asking his godfather questions such as ‘When do stars fade?’, ‘Where do paths end?’, ‘Who put the boulders in the river?’ He also recalls asking him, ‘What is a friend?’ And his godfather replied that a friend was the best thing in the world, worth more than any amount of money. Balbino was sad because he didn’t have such a friend, until the day he almost drowned in the mill race and was pulled out by Lelo. The two of them became best friends, shared secrets, until Lelo’s family decided to emigrate to America and Balbino had to say goodbye to him as he had to his brother. In chapter 13, Balbino remembers his time as sexton, for which he had to get dressed up and was paid a yearly sum. All good things come to an end, however, and after a few years somebody else got the job instead of him.

In chapter 14, Balbino visits the local gravedigger as he is digging a grave and asks him, ‘What is death?’ The gravedigger replies that death is the worst thing that can happen to you and it’s important to leave something worthwhile behind. He gives the example of Rendos, a villager who built a fountain which still gives water nine years after he died. That day, Balbino takes an oath not to waste his time, but to do something worthwhile with his life that will live on after he has died. In chapter 15, at the end of a hard day’s work, Balbino passes in front of the landlord’s house, where the landlord’s son, Manolito, is playing with the doctor’s children. He insults Balbino and suggests running after him. Balbino stands his ground and throws a stone that knocks Manolito to the ground. Balbino flees to his Aunt Estrela’s house, afraid that he might have killed Manolito. He imagines him as an angel, while Balbino is a dirty child with a murderous spirit. The next day, his aunt takes him home. His father then takes him to the landlord’s house and beats him with a rope. The family doesn’t have money to pay for Manolito’s cure and decides to send him away as a servant. That night, Balbino runs away and takes refuge in the house in Loxo where his sister, Celia, is already a maid. He will serve there rather than waiting to be sent away. In chapter 16, Balbino is serving in the house in Loxo, which belongs to a cattle dealer, Landeiro. The cattle dealer is much older than him, but not a bad person, he even laughs sometimes and gives Balbino books, because he knows he likes to read. Balbino has a fleeting relationship with a maid called Flora, who has served in the house for many years. One day, his father comes to see him. They have been allowed to stay on the land, paying a higher rent, so long as Balbino never returns to the village. He gives Balbino a letter from his friend Lelo. This makes Balbino so happy he writes to Lelo, telling him about his life instead of writing down his experiences in his diary. The diary, which is the book we have just read, he gives to Landeiro’s nephew, a young man who likes books and studies in Santiago.

Memoirs of a Peasant Boy is one of the most popular works in Galician literature and has been translated into numerous languages. It highlights the difference between rich and poor, between those who give orders and those who take them. It is a book that speaks of a rural boy’s childhood in Galicia in the years before and after the Spanish Civil War, and of all the things that happen to him, some of which he fails to understand, before he himself leaves the village and his childhood behind in order to serve in the house in Loxo. What enchants people is not only the elements of Balbino’s childhood, which are common to other children, but also Balbino’s curiosity, his willingness to learn and embrace the wider world.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne