Clases de chapín

A chapín is a kind of raised sandal or clog, and Guatemalans are referred to as 'chapines' in a large part of Latin America. The name has two connotations: it can be both hurled with contempt and brandished with pride, and that paradox provides a key to solving the puzzle represented here by a process of decantation. Because Eduardo Halfon's writing is precisely that: fragments drawn to a magnet, the story understood as a form of intimate and fractured biography. Tradition and otherness. Invented languages; drawing as representation, a reflection of the muteness of childhood. And violence, the celebration of violence and the destruction of an unknown and happy valley.