“Whoever tries to sell me the apocalypse is deceiving me... it is a way of selling fear, because when you introduce fear in people you dominate them forever....”

In this essay, the Palma-based writer, one of the ten Spanish-language fiction authors spotlighted in 2019 by the New York Times, delves into topics such as identity, statistics and love with utmost originality.

"We've invented a lot of technologies, but at any instant those things we depend on can disappear, and the only way to survive is to regain day-to-day survival."

A couple, Anne and Adam, are sent on a mission to collect data from a region devastated by a catastrophe on Earth. Winner of the Nadal Prize and a relevant poet of her generation, Merino teaches us that between simulations nothing is what it seems.

"There is a moment in any journey when one needs to return...I needed to counterpose the idea of infinite progress to returning home to Earth...One of the consequences of the pandemic is that there are more standards than ever...we need standards for everything."

«On my way forward, I have come to the homeward journey». This is how the conversation of two old men at the end of their lives begins in this reflection between the fantastic and the real, proposed by one of our most original narrative voices and winner of the Critics' Prize.

"I believe in the intrinsic goodness of the human being...it is necessary to keep talking a little bit about hope, even if sometimes we make a mess of things...panic is more present than ever in our society."

One of the most outstanding storytellers, winner of the Nadal Prize and successful young adult author, gives us this delightful tale that works like a Russian box where the everyday and the transcendent fit together in a master puzzle that combines different literary genres.

"When I was five years old my mother had an experience of enlightenment, everything was tucked inside a sense of meaning and happiness, and I spent my life investigating it...everyone agreed that they were looking at something nondescript and a flash of transformation would emerge in that world."

In a pandemic world, government officials interview people who begin to have mystical experiences. The writer offers us this story of transformations where characters and emotions mutate alongside the narrator's gaze.

"I think mental health has to occupy the central space of conversations, when something breaks in your soul, head or heart you have to go to the doctor...the precariousness of work has extended to the precariousness of relationships...loneliness has taken a great prominence"

What would happen if you found your co-worker asleep under her desk? Writer and editor of early fame, Medel presents us with a tale of deep social concern as a reflection on how working life affects us.

"There is a part of lucidity in madness that is very interesting... the only ethical thing I would apply to great technological advances is for everyone to have access, I would bet on being like gods, but including everyone..."

In this story, one of the most personal authors of our literature addresses the myth of Prometheus and shakes us with its plot: how far is a scientist willing to go to carry out his obsessions, what is the border between madness and sanity?

"You can't have a Miró in your bathroom, you can't have a hundred horses just for the whim of having them...the rich have to stop being so rich and the poor have to stop being so poor...that's the way."

This master of the short story, member of the RAE and last National Literature Prize, narrates the adventures of Jacinto Cajal, a defender of books in a digitalized world where they are considered useless objects and their readers are persecuted and ridiculed.

"I thought that after the coronavirus there was going to be a social transformation and I don't see it...if it doesn't happen, our civilization will go into the abyss...those who conspire against human beings have been introducing forms of life that disengage human beings...the coronavirus has been an exceptional testing ground for a vast exercise in social engineering."

What horizon awaits us after the end of life? Some kind of paradise or hell? Will our actions in life have their correspondence in death? These are the questions that the great writer and multi-award-winning columnist explores in the story of two elderly people living through a pandemic.

"There has been an experiment on how your simple daily life disappears...online shopping made me realize the luxury of having contact with a fishmonger who knows how to tell you what a squid looks like and how to cut it...what we have in Southern Europe on a daily basis is a luxury because it implies human contact and the time they dedicate to you..."

An old man shopping in a food market complains about the nanochip he has installed in his body and shows us an Orwellian world of everyday findings and authoritarian controls. A science fiction dystopia full of irony and wit.

"Listening is the theme of our time...we are going to a world of silence, listening and love... those who truly have hope have gone through despair...we are fine if we have a horizon to look towards, a present that is open to the future."

The story of a seemingly conventional man who gets everything he wants in life without flinching, while remaining true to himself. One of the most widely followed and acclaimed writers and essayists gives us this timeless tale.

"Sometimes we need things to be gone, to begin the movement of their recovery...the spirit of our time is uncertainty..."

Venice is the setting for this story that delves into the consequences of climate change and our mistreatment of the planet as cold witnesses to its deterioration. A writer of singular narrative and a philosopher by training, Salmón delivers this moral fable.