During the 1950’s Spanish author Juan Goytisolo traveled extensively through one of the most impoverished provinces of Spain. Almeria lies along this country`s southeastern coast, bathed by the Mediterranean Sea. It has since become only slightly more prosperous due, in part, to greenhouse agriculture and tourism. He began his seminal novel “Campos de Nijar” with “. I remember the profound impression of violence and poverty that Almeria produced in me…” I found some justification for his words fifty years later. His prose was laced with a dark humor that I found here as well.