"This novel is an admirable defense of imagination, literary language and humor as ways of approaching history."—Edurne Portela, El País.

"Gancedo's literature springs from journalistic synthesis, narrative poise and precise vocabulary."—Raúl Conde, El Mundo.

"Nothing is missing from this novel."—Nicolás Miñambres, ABC Arts and Letters.

Spain. 1980. In any provincial city. Francisco Munera is a gray office worker who lives with his mother, a recalcitrant woman who spends her days bedridden and who, for fear that her son "would signify and end up like his father," dedicates herself to giving him all kinds of advice. that dwarf their already bland existence. In Paquito, however, an ambition is suddenly born: to publish in the "Letters to the Director" section of the provincial newspaper, which his father always read. And this childish longing, together with a series of surprising coincidences, will lead him to discover the unsuspected existence of some people anchored in the past: an ailing party of the maquis that, despite the years that have passed and the cloak of oblivion fallen on their rifles, continues to cling to ideals and a few feet of Mediterranean jungle. Its members don't even remember how long they've been in ambush, though they still remember very well why.

Here is an extraordinary fable about the cyclical evolution of the history of Spain, about the apparent inability of this country to heal its wounds. With La Brigada 22, Emilio Gancedo gives us a work brimming with humor and tenderness, of an unusual depth, which is in line with our best literary tradition.

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It's been said:

«With a very delicate, very poetic prose, Gancedo makes us feel the loneliness of his characters (…). He reminds Galdós de Torquemada at the stake, who brings humor out of tragic situations but with a look full of tenderness ».—‘Imagined Lives', Radio Nacional de España

«Original, sensitive, emotional, tender, brimming with humor and with splendid prose, La Brigada 22 is a necessary fable about the recent history of Spain or, more specifically, about our inability to heal wounds. It is also a portrait of loneliness, anguish, vital weariness and Spanish stubbornness. We insist: an extraordinary debut novel.”—The Courbett Magazine

"It has that flavor of Delibes, and also Galdosian, in the portrait of a country and ways of living that are already on the brink of extinction."—Antonio Gárate, La Hora Cultural, TVE

"Emilio Gancedo is a worthy successor to the thriving and diverse lineage of novels from León: with writers like him, generational relief is guaranteed."—Fermín Herrero, El Norte de Castilla

"Gancedo builds powerful, idealistic, upright, and sometimes incomprehensible characters who thrive in an openly hostile world."—Javier Menéndez Llamazares, El Diario Montañés

"This person who signs it considers it one of the most interesting novels of recent times."—Alfonso García, Diario de León

«His reading of him, for some, can be an exercise in catharsis; for the vast majority, a parable of reconciliation”—Fernando Aller, Diario de Burgos

«If in the pages of Palabras mayores Gancedo raised an impressive human topography of a deep and empty Spain, in those of La Brigada 22 he uses an amusing phantasmagoria to bring to light the wounds of a country where a well-entrenched minority maintains that memory is the enemy of reconciliation.”—Eugenio Fuentes, La Nueva España

«Gancedo conquered us with his search for rural memory in Palabras mayores and here he once again exudes that refreshing air of the Province. Written with lightness and depth at the same time, it begins at the top and does not falter.”—Letras Corsarias

«The 22nd Brigade is a boisterous and endearing novel, which not only triumphs in the small portrait of the characters but also in the large-format canvas of an empty or emptied country, which Paquito's pilgrimages in search of the maquis help us understand. . The 22nd Brigade will not be Gancedo's last novel. A star is born.”—Alberto de Frutos, History of Spain and the World Magazine

«The ending, uniting a place out of time with Spain at the end of the 20th century, is spectacular and in a certain way shocking, and only then is it understood that the entire work has been a symbol, even though it is parodic, of the effort that this country to always delve into the same wounds and the same conflicts.”—César Prieto, Efe Eme

"With dialogues and characters close to those of Miguel Mihura or Rafael Azcona, Emilio Gancedo builds a small fable to parody great forgotten episodes of our recent past."—Manuel Sosa, Diario Crítico

“The author directs a very powerful, tender and surreal focus on the end of the novel, with enough force to say that we needed to read the last hundred pages a long time ago.”—Aroa Moreno Durán, La Marea