A Prison In The Sun

Author NoteI wrote A Prison in the Sun to honour and remember all those men imprisoned under General Franco's regime because they were gay. On Fuerteventura, where this story is set, prison conditions were brutal and likened to a concentration camp. To the best of my knowledge, nothing substantial about this prison has been written in English. All of my research I conducted in Spanish. In 2008 the story of the prison broke after professor Miguel Ángel Sosa Machín interviewed prison survivor, Octavia Garcia. I have known of the prison's existence since 1989, when I lived in Lanzarote and my close friends from the island told me what went on there. I have purposefully juxtaposed life in the prison with that of the present day, counterpointing the gravity of the prisoners' situation with a touch of bathos in the main narrative, striving not only for balance, but also to entice reflection on who we were, who we are, and where we want to be. A Prison in the Sun is my fourth Canary Islands' novel and was written in keeping with that narrative style. I offer the following story in all sincerity. Part One