An Andalusian Angela's Ashes - a story revealing both the awful plight of innocent people after the Spanish Civil War and the redeeming power of love.

Paper Spurs is a story full of images and emotion, where impossible love, betrayal and the desires of the protagonists take us back to an era of silence, defeat and strife. Paper Spurs paints a picture of social history in Spain in the 1950s, during Franco’s military dictatorship.

In the 1950s, Juana, a young Andalusian, emigrates with her family to Barcelona, escaping hunger and poverty. When life crushes her hopes, the love of Liberto, a persecuted anarchist, is her only refuge...

Olga Merino has lived in London and Moscow, where she worked as a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El Periódico de Cataluña. In 2006 she won the literary prize NH Mario Vargas Llosa for the best single short-story for the tale 'Las normas son las normas' ('Rules are Rules'), which recreates an impossible love story between a British soldier, disabled during the Crimean War, and a Welsh nurse, based upon the historic personality of Betsy Cadwaladyr.