The Spanish narrative has definitively stopped seeing reality in only one direction, to discover different paths that lead us to it, in an example of creative freedom. The relationship between love and hate is at the center of Tostonazo by Santiago Lorenzo (Blackie Books), where, as in the celebrated Los asquerosos, comedy and tragedy merge, in an accumulation of disasters that gain special intensity thanks to the vitality of the language.
In Hijos de la fábula, by Fernando Aramburu (Tusquets), in the escape full of amusing mishaps by two ETA members abandoned by the organization, we witness a lively conversation. We are accompanied by the splendid portraits of female figures and the force of nature.
In The last day of the previous life of Andrés Barba (Anagrama), the strangest events border on the implausible but are made plausible thanks to the setting in which they take place. Remarkable many scenes, as attractive as they are memorable. In Las ventanas inolvidables, by Menchu ​​Gutiérrez (Galaxia Gutenberg), meticulous observation from the infinite types of windows take us to an amazing world and we enter the time machine where memory transports us to a dreamlike dimension.
In Dirty Sky, by Edgardo Cozarinsky (Tusquets), a journey through the streets of Buenos Aires causes a succession of often delirious situations and from the first page we find ourselves with a series of curious objects and phantasmagorical characters. La escala social , by Manuel Longares (Galaxia Gutenberg ), is made up of independent one-page texts where imagination replaces the plot, with fun and irreverent references to sex and, above all, to politics.
In Santander, 1936 (Anagrama), Ãlvaro Pombo abandons his two major recurring themes, religion and homosexuality and all syntactic pirouettes in a novel about the rancid Pombo dynasty, protagonists of the daring dialectic between Falangists and Republicans. Nosotros by Manuel Vilas (Destiny), is a novel that cunningly hides many of its keys. Music, literature and cinema are always present, with a sonnet by Quevedo as the central motif, we share a song to love, dramatized precisely by its absence.
Full of profound suggestions, Anoxia, by Miguel Ãngel Hernández (Anagrama), revolves around the tradition of death photography. To this interesting theme are added the family and generational conflict and a mysterious photograph that triggers a dramatic crisis. Any summer is an end, by Ray Loriga (Alfaguara), narrates the deep friendship, perhaps love, between Yorick and his friend Lluiz, and his decision to commit suicide. The encounter between the two and the geographical displacements generate a series of strange situations where euphoria and the dramatic desire to die coincide.
In Todo va a mejorar, Almudena Grandes (Tusquets) returns to her familiar themes, but now with a new and fun dimension: that of imagining a Spain that would function as a company, leaving readers in the hands of their imagination. Despite her complex structure, she always maintains a pleasant fluidity.
In Pursuit and Murder of the Mouse King Represented by the Mouse Chorus, by A.G. Porta (Cliff), we witness the process of recreation of Dickens’s Christmas Carol, in a vain attempt to give a definitive version. The heroine of Portrait of a modern woman, by Manuel Vicent (Alfaguara), is the singer Conchita Piquer. She draws on the artist’s complex personality in what can be read as a biography at the service of fiction, where imagination rules over documentation.
In The Island of Doctor Schubert, by Karina Sainz Borgo (Lumen), the island of Majorca is reached on a Homeric journey in which we find lamias, dragons or Cyclops, and hear the sirens’ song. Triumphs above all the prodigious imagination dominated by the magical and the fabulous. Castillos de fuego, by MartÃnez de Pisón (Seix Barral), is a magnificent example of how, beyond what may interest the plot (here, the sordid postwar period, from 1939 to 1945), what counts is the narrator’s talent for develop it. A highly documented novel, it is full of life and close to the reader thanks to the naturalness of the prose.
Sangre de horchata, by Luisa Castro (Alfaguara), is a fast-paced novel about family relationships, with really powerful characters that take us, from surprise to surprise, to extreme situations, in a rich plot that is as funny as it is dramatic. In Metallic shutters go down suddenly, by Marta Sanz (Anagrama), we witness the wise advice of drones to human beings, in a novel close to science fiction. Reflections abound, especially on old age, memory and oblivion, in a dense prose but once we enter it we don’t want to leave.
In Just Smoke, by Juan José Millás (Alfaguara), we find situations that are familiar to us, such as the intrusion of a flat into the flat next door, and at the same time full of disconcerting surprises. Here the reading of the Grimm tales from inside the story is of special interest, so that we are inside and outside at the same time, we are readers and characters.