Institut Ramon LLull

Solitude, desire, loneliness, aging and fear are some of the themes that emerge in this sophisticated, nimble debut. In this book, we meet a man who lost his nose in an accident and cannot escape the weight of others’ gazes, and an elderly woman intent on literally erasing herself, a recent widower who sets out to prune his fig tree, a nine-year-old girl who stumbles across a secret between her father and her uncle, among others. Metaphors seem to come to life, such as an enigmatic tunnel a couple dares to enter and water abounds in various forms.

The collection’s polyphony of voices encompass the young and the old, men and women, first and third person. The language is precise and lyrical and it is read with palpable pleasure. These thirteen stories, with their overtones of slightly jaded fairy tales, work together to confront the nature of time and mortality and investigate the courage that requires.