There are reasons to believe that Camilo Jose Cela knew perfectly well what he was doing as he wrote, between 1945 and 1950, La colmena, a novel that would counterweight the positive image the Franco regime was striving to build. In his foreword to the first edition Cela justifies and describes his text as a pale reflection ... a humble shadow of the daily, harsh, deep and painful reality. His portrait of a sad and desperate Madrid immediately drew the attention of the censors: the novel was banned in Spain until 1955, four years after its first edition was released in Argentina. The idea of...