There are reasons to believe that Camilo Jose Cela knew perfectly well what he was doing as he wrote, between 1945 and 1950, «La colmena», a novel that would counterweight the positive image the Franco regime was striving to build. In his foreword to the first edition Cela justifies and describes his text as a «pale reflection ... a humble shadow of the daily, harsh, deep and painful reality.» His portrait of a sad and desperate Madrid immediately drew the attention of the censors: the novel was banned in Spain until 1955, four years after its first edition was released in Argentina.The idea of portraying the daily Madrid reality constitutes the very essence of «La colmena» and, quite paradoxically, gives the text its universal reach. In the first place «La colmena» is a novel with no main character or plot in a traditional sense: a host of characters (more than three hundred between real and fictitious) and sub-plots, run along the streets in this intricate work. Its unity, though, resides in the most frequently mentioned character, Martin Marco, whose wanderings along the distinct Madrid boroughs and spaces render the novel a certain structural coherence. At the same time the novel sets the «hive» characteristic right from its title, so the laborious existence of the characters allow the reader to explore the diverse corners of the city and the people that strive to survive there.But the «hive» image is also a paradox. Undoubtedly there is the racket and constant movement, ...