My Father’s Journey by Julio Llamazares

El viaje de mi padre / My Father’s Journey is a deeply moving narrative non-fiction work by acclaimed Spanish author Julio Llamazares, published by Alfaguara in 2025 (328 pages, ISBN 9788420479279). This poignant memoir blends personal recollection with historical exploration as the author retraces his father’s footsteps through Spain, seeking to understand both a family legacy and the wider impact of the Spanish Civil War. 

At its core, My Father’s Journey is a meditation on memory, regret, and the landscapes that hold the echoes of past lives. Llamazares reflects on how he once dismissed his father’s wartime stories, only to later regret that inattention after his father’s early death. Driven by a desire to honor the men who lived through the conflict—and to encounter the places they experienced—Llamazares sets out on a journey across the spine of the Iberian Peninsula. 

Immersed in the geography and climate of the same months his father endured, the author meets locals whose memories of that “terrible winter” and the heat of the subsequent summer live on. These encounters and the landscapes themselves act as a canvas for history and memory, revealing how deeply the Spanish countryside retains human stories. Through these layered reflections, Llamazares brings insight into both personal and collective memory, showing how past and present merge in places marked by conflict. 

Mixing travel, memoir, and cultural history, El viaje de mi padre resonates with readers interested in memory studies, Spanish history, and narrative journeys connecting intimate family experience with wider historical truths.