New Spanish Titles - Spring 2011

At almost fifty years of age, Teodoro Sagredo, a secondary school teacher, shaves off his beard. However, this ordinary action changes his life drastically since neither his family nor closest friends recognise him and, despite insisting on his true identity, he is put in a mental hospital.

This is the story of a little girl who lives far away from the world we know and who, because of her condition, has a life full of obligations. One day someone teaches her that there is another world, and she meets other children who can even dream. But just as she is about to abandon her dream, someone gives her A VERY SPECIAL GIFT.

The Tower is the largest building in the village, an inhuman block inhabited by as many people as live in the rows of houses that have just been built on the outskirts. People are installed in shelves in the air, like books, each one with their own story, some good and others bad, some about to open up and others to be closed.

Forty years have gone by since Anjel Lertxundi published his first book. In this fragmented essay, his gaze and memory pass over this long literary career, and the journey, as Cavafy would wish, has been fruitful. In short texts, like the tessera of a mosaic, the author shapes a general balance of his professional life, closely connnected to the act of writing.