Straddling the testimonial narrative and essay, The Hangover of Memory (“La resaca de la memoria”) tells the story of a character referred to as “I.” An “I” in the third person who, belonging to the second generation of Chile’s dictatorship, is permeated by the memories of others and by the traces of a receding memory. The book’s title, The Hangover of Memory, reflects this phenomenon and points to the double meaning of the word “hangover”: the debris left behind by ocean waves, and the malaise one wakes up with (or, in this case, is born into) the day after intoxication.
The daughter of survivors who sought refuge in Mexico, “I” extends the exile in France, as if fleeing a tragic family destiny. Indeed, “I” is also the niece of Miguel Estay, alias El Fanta: one of the most emblematic and controversial perpetrators of the dictatorial period. Sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, this former left-wing militant betrayed dozens of members of the Communist Party, and ultimately participated voluntarily in one of the most atrocious crimes of that era, the so-called “Case of the Throats Slashed.”
“I,” the daughter of victims, explores the remnants of imprisonment, torture, and exile clinging to her skin, trying to identify everything that binds her to the other “stragglers of memory” of her generation. “I,” the perpetrator’s niece, delves into that other grim zone of History, asking what part of that legacy belongs to her and how to confront it from an ethical and political standpoint. In search of her family past, the character thus embarks on an adventure: she returns to Chile, joins the 2019 social uprising, meets other descendants of genocidaires, co-founds a collective with them, encounters some of her uncle’s victims, and discovers the existence of an unknown cousin—the daughter of the perpetrator.
To invent one’s own narrative amid secrets, distortions, lies, and unbearable truths: such is the challenge she is confronted with—a challenge as immense as the price to be paid.

A country in the throes of dictatorship, a repressive group operating in the shadows: torture, murder, disappearances, clandestine detention centres. And a young soldier, Andrés Valenzuela. Papudo, his village. “Papudo”, his nickname. A young soldier who gradually descended into hell.
One morning, he decides to ‘tell everything, spit it all out, down to the last detail. Even if they come after me. Even if they kill me for deserting.’ ‘It doesn’t really matter: you’re already dead. They stole your soul.’
Andrés Valenzuela was the only agent who, while on active duty, deserted after handing over information to the Vicariate of Solidarity about the structure and extermination practices implemented by the secret organisation of which he was a member. Here is the story of a living dead man. And what happened before: a humble childhood, dreams and fantasies, friends from the neighbourhood, a fisherman father. And what happened after: the strangeness of exile, clandestinity, heartbreak, guilt – always guilt. Many journalists, writers, and filmmakers have endeavoured to tell the story of Papudo, the torturer; Papudo, the murderer; Papudo, the penitent. The story of Papudo, the man, is now told by him.

This book gives voice to Andrés Valenzuela, a deserter from the Air Force Intelligence Service and former operative agent of the Joint Command during the Pinochet dictatorship. Assuming the paradox of someone else’s autobiography, it collects his last and longest testimony, sealed by a letter in his own handwriting. Why did you break down? Why at that moment and not before? Why you and not others?
From Papudo to Hell. Autobiography of Andrés Valenzuela Morales (“De Papudo al infierno. Autobiografía de Andrés Valenzuela Morales”) raises these and other questions.

Francesco Pasquale, a young coppersmith, leaves Sapri, on the Amalfi coast south of Naples, apparently fleeing from the monarchy and soldiers of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It seems that he worked clandestinely for a secret society called Carbonari, which was an informal network of secret revolutionary societies active in Italy from about 1800 to 1831. Crossing the Mediterranean, he arrives in Barcelona and ends up in Bermeo in the Basque Country, a coastal town with a lot of character, the capital of Bizkaia before Bilbao, where he marries twice and becomes the father of several children. His neighbours only own three records, by Robert Schumann, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, three contemporary composers of Francesco’s times. As he lies on his deathbed, their sounds reach his ears through the window, while he remembers his childhood in Sapri.
Francesco‘s life is marked in first place by his condition as a migrant. Human beings usually have four souls: one in childhood, another in youth, another in maturity, and another in old age. But migrants, like Francesco, have a fifth soul, which lies between their place of birth and where they have, or where they have decided to live.
What sets About the Five Souls of Francesco Pasquale (“Sobre las cinco almas de Francesco Pasquale”) apart, is its structure, letting stories and tales fly together, making use of different storytelling techniques and narrators, forming a remarkable novel with a unique character.

In this novel, Elorriaga sends two almost eighty-year-old friends from the Basque Country, who could hardly be more dissimilar, on a final journey through Eastern Europe: Erroman, who tells us the story, is the epitome of calmness, Soro Barturen is eccentric, a millionaire and seriously ill. Despite this – or perhaps because of it – Barturen pursues his missing friend Pedro Iturria, with whom he had once studied engineering in London, like an obsessed man, with Erroman always at his side. Iturria had a passion for writing. Now the two friends follow the trail of his writings, published in the respective local languages, from Prague via Budapest and Warsaw to Moscow, for which the translators, especially Eszter Nagy, a Hungarian of Argentinean origin, are of special importance. In their conversations with Barturen, they have to answer all his questions.
Part of the novel is made up of some of the fascinating stories of the misunderstood genius Iturria. They deal with the deeper meaning of life in exceptional situations and depict dystopian visions of reality. The title story We Don’t Hang Anyone (“Iturria”/”Nosotros no ahorcamos a nadie”) stands out in particular: it culminates in the public hanging of five people and, with the simultaneous presence of past and future elements and an undefined controlling authority with terrifying rules, inevitably calls to mind Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”. The novel develops into an enjoyable literary scavenger hunt celebrating friendship and the art of storytelling.

Irene Arrias was born in Algorta, but she also looks straight ahead, without filters, at the rest of the world. That is why she is obsessed with all the forms of violence that, near or far, she is able to feel as her own: attacks, torture, murders, rapes, attacks, persecutions, massacres, executions, crimes and wars. Maps and Dogs (“Mapas y Perros”), originally published in 2014 in Basque, is Unai Elorriaga’s fifth novel. Winner of the Critics’ Prize in 2015 for its “pessimistic vision of the human condition” and finalist for the National Fiction Prize and the Basque Literature Prize, this book proposes a sort of panopticon of violence capable of tracing a route that leaves Algorta and crosses the world, through a network of dark events narrated with sordidness and precision that place us in front of the always convex mirrors of cruelty and fear.

The young protagonist Phineas is convinced that his vanished sister Sora has been abducted by the henchmen of the dictatorship terrorising their small town. Despite all the risks involved, he sets out to search for her. Phineas comes across reports and documentations of the permanent spying, torture and forced operations used to oppress every dissident in the surveillance state. Into this first part of his novel London Is Made of Card (“Londres es de cartón”) Elorriaga weaves a second strand, which reads like a typical English detective story. An elderly lady has been murdered and three men start the detective work of revealing the killer. The murderer they find is the schizophrenic Sora, who is put into a psychiatric ward. Although Phineas finds out what really happened to his sister in the end, he never loses hope of one day seeing her again. London Is Made of Card questions our familiar perception of reading. With virtuoso skill, the author uses dreams and imitation, confronting the reader with the horrors of a nameless dictatorship and the dubious nature of deductive investigations. Elorriaga is a master in showing us the gaps left behind by a desaparecido.

In Plants Don’t Drink Coffee (“Vredaman”) Unai Elorriaga tells the enchanting tales of a small Basque village. At first, we meet Tomas, whose childlike perspective forms one of four narrative strands. Since his father is in poor health, the boy spends the summer at his aunt’s house and goes hunting for insects with his older cousin. To catch the rare blue dragonfly is his highest ambition. As before with age, the author here skilfully encapsulates the child’s world with his imaginative and playful language. The most ambitious project of the summer, however, is impelled by Uncle Simón. As a rugby fan he has a tough stand in Spain, where only rarely a game is transmitted, let alone carried out. Yet with the help of 82-year old Piedad, who once lived in England and speaks the language, he manages to realize his wildest dream, to referee a game in Wales against Ireland. The game is a huge success for him, but he goes even further: Simón invites both teams back to his village. Here both players and spectators clamber over the walls of the nearby golf course where Simón and his friends have prepared a pitch. When the police eventually arrive on the sidelines, indecisive and late, the final whistle is blown and all disappear to conclude the evening on the beach. In scenes which sometimes border on the surreal, Unai Elorriaga presents us with a world in which dreams and desires still form part of everyday life. His protagonists are often simple human beings, who emanate a great kindness and who charm their environment and the reader alike.

A Tram to the Himalaya (“Un tranvía en SP”) tells of an unusual friendship between a young busker and a pair of elderly siblings. Critics were thrilled by the young author’s startlingly perceptive approach to thorny topics such as age, forgetfulness and death. Moreover, they rejoiced at his wilful style.