Mazurka for Two Dead Men represents a culmination of the 1989 Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela's literary art. It was selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice in 1993 and praised by Newsday as "the definitive novel of how the Spanish Civil War was actually experienced by ordinary people. In 1936, at the beginning of the war, "Lionheart" Gamuzo is abducted and killed. In 1939, when the war ends, his brother, Tanis Gamuzo avenges his death. For both these events, the blind accordion player Gaudencio plays the same mazurka. Set in a backward rural community in Galicia, Cela's creation is in many ways like the contrapuntal musical composition built with varying themes and moods. In alternately melancholy, humorous, lyrical or coarse tones, he portrays a reign of fools.