Fernando Aramburu has composed a magnificent portrait of a Basque society immersed in the poison of ETA’s terrorist irrationality. He did it in the blessed homeland. And maybe he’s the only one who can now make a novel in which terrorists are treated with the means of satirical humor and picaresque novels. He does so in Hijos de la fábula, where the protagonists are two young men who signed up for the gang in two news programs before it announces the downing of arms. In their work, they show all their pathos and stupidity in humorously told adventures, but without seriously dealing with the crude indoctrination that many young people were subjected to during this bloody period.
The paratexts “Book flaps, back covers, summaries” seem superfluous as they do not come from the author who signs the cover, at least not from the Italian publisher Sellerio. Far from it, they form an inexcusable corpus when it comes to composing the image of an outstanding figure in European literature like Leonardo Sciascia. This is confirmed in the volume Leonardo Sciascia, Writer and Editor, our book of the week, which summarizes the numerous writings written by the Sicilian author during his time at the helm of the aforementioned label. Small jewels that also reveal the limitless intellectual world of the author of El caso Moro, the chronicle recently republished by Tusquets as part of the Exterior Noche (Filmin) series.
Additionally, this week Babelia’s critics review works such as the biography Néstor Sánchez, la Conducta Iluminada, which portrays the controversial Argentine writer; or the novels El corazón del daño by María Negroni and Anoxia by Miguel Ángel Hernández. Finally, we must highlight two essays, The Ambiguous Word. Intellectuals in Spain (1889-2019), in which David Jiménez Torres discusses the (sometimes maligned) meaning that the word intellectual has had in Spain over the past 150 years; and Miguel Primo de Rivera. Dictatorship, Populism and Nation, in which its author Alejandro Quiroga Fernández de Soto portrays the coup as the “inventor of right-wing populism in Spain”. Furthermore, he points out that his dictatorial regime was more repressive and closer to fascism than previous historians admitted.
This book reveals not only the amazing diligence of the Sicilian author in the task of reviewing and promoting a book, but above all an intellectual world without borders. Review by Javier Aparicio Maydeu.
The author of the harsh socio-political panopticon of “Patria” dares to tell the tragedy of terrorism with satirical humor. Review by Domingo Ródenas de Moya.
A broadly autobiographical novel with a narrator shaped by the mother’s emotional absence during childhood. Criticism of Carlos Pardo.
An essay tells of the life and work of the author of “Nosotros dos”, who was always ready for relentless discussions and broke all red lines of living together. Criticism of J. Ernesto Ayala-Dip
An unlikely friendship and a somewhat morbid interest in photography are at the heart of Miguel Ángel Hernández’s latest novel. Criticism of Ana Rodríguez Fischer.
This biography recreates the character of the putschist and defines his regime as corrupt, repressive and close to fascism. Review by Jordi Canal.
An exploration of how the term has been redefined in more than 130 years: from the ’98 generation to the position towards ETA. Review by Jordi Amat.
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