José Ovejero

Dulce Chacón 2023 Award

A dazzling work of autofiction, a tour de force through a writer’s memory and conscience.

“Nothing that I’ve described here makes me feel proud,” says the narrator of one of the stories that make up this magnificent book, the most autobiographical of José Ovejero’s career. On this occasion, his typically sharp, unsettling gaze deviates from social reality to focus on himself, providing a self-portrait that is anything but self-indulgent.

This book unapologetically touches on family conflicts, class prejudice, the irresolvable contradictions of a writer politically committed to the left, unconditional love, and the obsession with death that is so omnipresent in his work. On the other hand, is it really autobiographical? Perhaps his father, whom he detested, never put a shotgun in his hands when he was a child and never forced him to shoot an innocent dog, but whether they are clothed in the garb of fiction or not, these stories reveal the true identity of a writer in constant confrontation with the world and with himself.

“With the very first story, “Matar a un perro”, Ovejero grips the reader by the throat and then it’s impossible to put the book down until the end. [...] Risk, tenderness, nudity and critical irony. A treasure.”—Adriana Bertorelli, La Lectura, El Mundo

“A book of short stories like a living animal that suddenly turns on us and bites.” —Babelia, El País

"Un libro memorable porque es punzante, doloroso y porque no da tregua." Ricardo Baixeras, El Periódico