SOURCE: "Death and Revenge in Spain's Backwoods," in New York Times, November 29, 1992, pp. 15-7.

In the following review, Echevarria praises Cela's Mazurka for Two Dead Men as "a powerful book."

Through the bus window, the change in landscape from Castile to Galicia is abrupt. The colors change suddenly from ocher to green. The harsh rhythm of crags and arid flatlands is replaced by lush hills with sensuous curves, shrouded in mists or crowned by shockingly low clouds. The air is cool and humid, and a pungent smell of grass and dung fills the air. The winding road curves around small dairy farms and through tiny hamlets with incongruous signs advertising local and national products. The signs are in Spanish but the names of streets and stores betray that not just a geographic border has been crossed, but a cultural one as well. At a stop, a barmaid breaks...