When you least expect it

About the book:

The opinion of the critics on Las olas del mundo (The Waves of the World): “It reveals the workings of a redeeming fiction, a verbal refuge for an adolescent gripped by fear, overwhelmed by everything she cannot understand and [...] also by guilt” (Daniel Gigena, Las 12 supplement). On Lo que dicen cuando callan (What They Say When They Fall Silent): “Using a complex narrative technique, the author manages to weave a plot that unfolds and articulates following the same arbitrary logic? of our memory” (Sebastián Basualdo, Página/12 newspaper). “Precise, detailed, heart-warming stories that seem to begin and end beyond the written page, and of which we are involuntary witnesses. Her vision enlightens and teaches us” (Alberto Manguel).

Excerpt:

“After a bath, smelling of L’Occitane verbena and wrapped in a magnificent towel, she was happily unpacking her few clothes when she saw a fleeting shadow obscuring the last light of the sun setting between the bedroom and the hill. Noises on the pine needles.” A mother concocts a big lie so that her son would be called up to play a soccer match; a screenwriter arrives at a sumptuous estate by the sea to work on her script but becomes involved in a despairing situation; two little sisters who are avid readers do their best to stoically bear family obligations that prevent them from reading; a mature woman sees how her physical and intellectual attributes are shaken when she unexpectedly meets the special girlfriend of a close friend; five siblings gather to discuss their mother’s inheritance; a pre-adolescent girl raised by a strict and outdated moral code finds herself defenseless in the office of an eminent physician; a wife gets pregnant with the only purpose of uploading her baby’s photos to the social media; a recent widow examines what her long life as a couple has meant to her.

Translated by Julia Benseñor / Edited by Laura Estefanía