Julian Zabalbeascoa at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes Julian Zabalbeascoa—fiction writer whose work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, and The Gettysburg Review—for a discussion of his debut novel What We Tried To Bury Grows Here. He will be joined in conversation by Andre Dubus III—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of House of Sand and Fog and Townie.

About What We Tried To Bury Grows Here

In late 1936, eighteen-year-old Isidro Elejalde leaves his Basque village in Northern Spain, spurred to join the fight to preserve his country’s democracy from the insurrectionists by the rousing words of a political essayist. Months earlier, Spanish generals launched a military coup to overthrow Spain’s newly elected left-wing government. They assumed the population would welcome the coup, but throughout the country people like Isidro remained loyal to the ideals of democracy, and the Spanish Civil War began in bloody earnest.

In Bilbao, Mariana raises her two young children while, with her writing, she decries the fascist-backed coup attempt and their German and Italian allies, imploring the world to support democracy. As the Nationalist forces assault the country, Mariana and Isidro’s lives intersect fleetingly, yet in meaningful and lasting ways.

Through a chorus of voices—a female soldier in an all-male battalion, a reluctant conscript recently emigrated from Cuba, a young girl whose parents have abandoned her in order to fight against the fascists, among others—we follow Isidro and Mariana as they struggle to maintain their humanity in a country determined to tear itself apart.

Julian Zabalbeascoa is a fierce and assured new talent, and What We Tried to Bury Grows Here is a remarkable feat of research and imagination, as well as a transcendent literary accomplishment.

Praise for What We Tried To Bury Grows Here

“What We Tried to Bury Grows Here is a startling book, beautiful and horrific, that navigates the complexities of Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War, in which fascism and communism, regionalism and nationalism, and faith and skepticism do battle across a brilliantly evoked, suffering landscape." —Phil Klay, National Book Award winning author of Redeployment and Missionaries

“In the tradition of such master story tellers as Isaac Babel and Phil Klay, Julian Zabalbeascoa has written a piercing narrative set during the Spanish Civil War. Alive with wonderful characters, moments of dread, bathos and humour, What We Tried to Bury Grows Here illuminates a crucial period of history. This is a timely and absorbing novel.” —Margot Livesey, author of The Boy in the Field, Mercury, and The Flight of Gemma Hardy

“Julian Zabalbeascoa is the real deal, a major talent, and the story he’s telling here is both riveting and terrifying.” —Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.