No Words from Gurb

No words from Gurb is a book written by the Spanish writer Eduardo Mendoza.
It was originally published by El País in weekly deliveries, and later translated to English, German, French, Italian, Korean, Danish and Polish.

Mendoza wrote this book in 1991 as a critique of the Spanish and Barcelona's society, and it was well received by the critics.
The author recognized that it was an incomprehensable trend when it first came to light.

Eduardo Mendoza was born January 11th. 1943 in Barcelona (Spain).
He studied a Laws degree in the 1970's, and before enjoying a scholarship in London, he went to New York, where he worked as an interpreter for the UNO (United Nations Organization).

There his literary production received wide recognition -characterised by a good use of narrative language, ability to make humor of silly situations or by keeping the estructure- and the publication of his first book, La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (The truth about Savolta's case).

Since then, he has published books, theatres, essays and short stories such as La aventura del tocador de señoras, Restauraciò or Tres vidas de santos (Three lives of saints).

He is the winner of so many prizes: Ciudad de Barcelona Award (1987), Best Book of the Year by Lire (France, 1988), Elle Award (1992), Frank Kafka Award (2015) and the most recent, Cervantes Award (2016).

In a Pre-Olympic Bercelona (1991; Olympic Games were in 1992), an alien called Gurb desappears while he was supplanting Marta Sánchez' s identity.

The storyteller during all the story is a friend of him, an alien too, who starts looking for him. To comply the mission, he becomes other famous characters, changing his appearance to look like the King Alfonso V, Miguel de Unamuno or Isoroku Yamamoto in order to adapt himself to the world and the way of life there.

The story turns Barcelona to a place where the real face of human beings is showed and all kinds of funny, satirical situations are given place.

Narrator. He is the commander of the spaceship and the main character. He tells the story through his diary. His own shape is pure energy, but he can became any famous personality and it is often used to create funny results. At the end, he manages to adapt to the world and the traditions.

Gurb. This alien is the only one who can fix the spaceship and the first to explore Barcelona (and later he gets lost; the narrator doesn't meet again with him until the end). He is funny and dissobedient.

The neighbor. She is not an important character in the story; the narrator falls in love with her and tries to attract her attention, but it never works. She has a son from a previous relationship.

Mr Joaquín and Mrs Mercedes. They are the owners of a bar the narrator frequents. They have a trust relationship with him and in spite of all his wims, they think he is a nice person. This is the only relationship that lasts from the beginning to the end.

1. Time to show your creativity and artwork! Make a comic scene with all the information given; you create it by hand or online. If you choose this last option, I recommend that you use Pixton. INTRUCTIONS: Click here, login or register a new account if you don't have one. To start your piece of art, you can look for resources on the net. Here you can watch a video for beginners:

2. PUZZLE. (HARD)
100

3. GUESS THE SENTENCE! Click here to start.
4. GUESS THE WORD! Click here to start (ALPHABET SOUP)