Año: 1999
Editorial: Tusquets
Idioma: Español, Catalán
Sinopsis: Una peste extraña fulmina paulatinamente a los habitantes de una gran ciudad. Rechazados por sus semejantes, algunos enfermos no tienen siquiera un lugar donde terminar sus días. Un peluquero, que hasta entonces ha regentado con grandes esfuerzos un célebre salón de belleza, decide dar refugio a los moribundos. Aficionado a los peces exóticos que en sus acuarios decoran el salón, el peluquero acaba convirtiendo su salón en un moridero medieval. ¿Qué mal diezma a los huéspedes del improvisado enfermero, carente al parecer de motivos filantrópicos? Con el tiempo ya sólo los peces multicolores serán testigos indiferentes de su dedicación, cercana a la santidad verdadera, sin paliativos naturales ni consuelos piadosos. Mientras le acecha la soledad, el protagonista ofrece un definitivo canto a la vida. Sin conmiseración, sin moraleja."Beauty Salon is pithy, allegorical and profoundly disturbing, with a plot that evokes The Plague by Camus or Blindness by José Saramago."
—New York Times
A mysterious and deadly plague suddenly appears among the inhabitants of an unnamed city. Shunned by family and friends, some of the afflicted have nowhere to finish out their days until a lone hair stylist decides to convert his "Salon to the Stars" into a refuge for the dying. A connoisseur of exotic fish whose many aquariums adorn the salon, he creates a kind of medieval hospice. Time passes, his "guests" continue to arrive and die, and his isolation becomes more and more complete. All the while, the multicolored fish bear silent witness to his almost saintly dedication. Without medicines, pity or moralizing, he dispenses care until he meets his own end, in this dream-like parable from one of Mexico's cutting-edge literary stars.
"When this disquieting novella appeared, told in a spare poetic language that seemed at once familiar and hauntingly strange, Mexican (and even Latin American) literature changed. Many readers sensed that here, at last, was a writer who truly spoke for them, of their secrets and secret selves and submerged dreams, in a voice they hadn't realized could actually find expression, much less appear in a book. Since then Mario Bellatin's influence and prestige have grown with each subsequent book, all of them marvels, like gifts from the future."
—Francisco Goldman
