Coque Astillero presents 'Pazman', a novel about the anti-terrorist struggle in the Basque Country

Coque Astillero's new novel, 'Pazman', a historical fiction book about the fight against the terrorist group ETA in the Basque Country, will be published on 11 October.

In his work, the Guardia Civil colonel with a diploma in General Staff tells the story of a character, Manel Queralt, and his experience in the fight against terrorism. In the mid-1990s, Queralt was assigned to the Basque Country. There, in the Information Service of the Bilbao Command, he takes charge of the operational group PROA 5.6, an indomitable bunch of young civil guards who are not used to obeying, only to doing what they have to do. The group has been tasked with controlling ETA. This will be the object of a tense dispute between the Guardia Civil and the Policía Nacional which, with overlapping surveillance, will jeopardise the operation.

Queralt discovers an unimagined reality that gradually transforms his euphoria and illusion into disenchantment and impotence; a reality that has gone largely unnoticed by chroniclers and historians. 

This novel is not just another story about the anti-terrorist struggle against ETA. In Pazman, ETA's atrocities are or are based on real events, and many characters are inspired by people the author knew. Pazman is the true story of the men and women who fought against ETA.

In this way, and with its own identity, Pazman joins the literary wave that emerged in the wake of Fernando Aramburu's Patria to become an indispensable account of this complex situation: the story of the civil guards who fought against ETA.

The book relies on the experience of Astillero, who has developed his professional career in the fight against terrorism, international police cooperation, teaching and border control. The Guardia Civil colonel is the author of a wide range of unpublished novels, poetry books and film scripts, combining his career in the security forces with his love of writing. His years in the Basque Country, his passion for the seventh art and his creativity gave birth to Pazman, a work that has been a finalist for the Azorín Novel Prize 2022.