See How Much I Love You

In Barcelona, teenagers Santiago and Montse meet and fall in love. However, he comes from a poor background while she is educated middle class. Although she is pregnant, they break up leading to a depressed Santiago leaving Spain for the Western Sahara where Spain's only African colony is located. By 1975 with Spain gone, war breaks out between Morocco and the Saharawi. Montse learns her beloved is dead. However, three decades later a divorced doctor, Montse finds a picture of Santiago carried by a patient. She learns he lives and lost his spouse and child just like her. She realizes she never forgotten the love of her life. Deciding to find him, she treks to what was once Spanish Morocco in search of her Santiago. She thinks she knows the danger, but the Western Sahara remains dangerous especially the Saharawi refugee camps where he is escorting a family. Still she continues her quest for love. Although there is a bittersweet romantic connection, the story line focuses on the little heard about plight of the Saharawi in western Morocco. The story line starts slow but takes off at the first reference to Santiago in Africa though the plot moves back and forth in time. Complicated, Luis Leante provides a profound look at Western Sahara where another people has been negatively impacted by imperialism, but ultimately devastated from neighbors within Africa. Harriet Klausner

El autor es excelente, te hace vivir la vida de los personajes, te hace estar en los lugares que el describe, puedes sentir el calor, la humedad, el dolor, la angustia de los diferentes personajes, te hace conocer una cultura que describe con tantos detalles y sencilles que simplemente crees que vienes de ahi, y lo mejor de todo es el final, NUNCA nadie se imaginaria el final, es tan impactante que te transporta de forma magica a ese momento y te hace sentir como si un gran velo se remueve de enfrente de tus ojos. Sencillamente genial, sin desperdicio en ninguna pagina.

I opened this book out of curiosity, intending to just read the first paragraph, but once I started I couldn't put it down. I read the whole book in one weekend. I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but this book was easy for me to read. The author paints vivid pictures of the Saharan desert and of all the characters of the novel without resorting to obscure, flowery words that you wouldn't hear in everyday speech. And the story is amazing. It moves easily between the past and the present, between Barcelona and the Sahara - every time offering you another piece of the story so that the farther along you go, the more clearly you understand what has happened and is happening. The morning after I finished this novel, I woke up still thinking about it.

This novel received the Alfagura Literary Award last March. I had my reserves about a romance that include a Spaniard and a Saharaui woman in the middle of the Polisario war against Spain. The romance include a threesome love affair. The Barcelona doctor that got pregnant by the soldier who went to fight the Polisario and felt for an arab girl and the girl who -au contraire to my ideas- also felt for the European. So it is intrigue, well elaborated, moving ravishly between present, past and future to give a lovely story that Passion and Commitment can survive even the desert hot sands and the wars....

Luis Leante wrote a gem of a novel and it is no surprise that this book won the Premio Alfaguara de Novela 2007. Without having read anything from this author before, I trusted the many articles and editorial reviews that I read about Mira si yo te querre. It would not be fair to go into details about this book but I will say the descriptions of the Sahara, the characters, the main theme and the narration are the strong points of this novel. The locations mentioned inspired me to look up some these places in Northern Africa to better appreciate the descriptions. The love story of Montse and Santiago and Montse's quest to find her "Santiago San Roman" in the Sahara is moving. Luis Leante's research and hard work has resulted in a one of a kind book. Well worth the read and the award. PD. I too feel the ending was disappointing but it's a great novel otherwise./ marianopolita