Eduardo Halfon has an ambitious literary project in progress. It began with ‘El boxeador polaco’ and continues, several novels later, in the recently published ‘Un hijo cualquiera‘. He writes about his origins, from his childhood curiosity about the number tattooed on the forearm of his Polish Jewish grandfather – who explained that it was a telephone he didn’t want to forget – to the violent history of Guatemala, the country where he grew up before moving to the United States, and the memory of his other grandfather, an Arab Jew. Halfon’s mixture and nomadism are reflected in his literature, not as a global memory of the 20th century but as an exploration of his own identity. It is a literary issue that is of equal concern to Txani Rodríguez. At a shorter geographical distance, her literature also delves into the Basque-Andalusian mixture of her origins; her Basque learnt and used outside her mother’s domain, which defines her as much as her trips to Ronda or her passion for flamenco. The two authors also share within their pages a taste for revealing detail and atmospheres of apparent calm, charged with the electricity that precedes a storm. And humour, which for Halfon «emerges spontaneously both in everyday episodes and moments of great solemnity, as an escape valve». Something that Txani Rodríguez confirms when she says that «life has a humorous choreography, even in the most uncomfortable moments».

Invitations can be downloaded from 24 September.

Book signing after the event.