Year: 2003
Editorial: Alfaguara
Language: Español, Catalán
Synopsis: Heroic Dogs: A man forced all his life to remain immobile—he is probably paraplegic; in any case, he is confined to a wheel chair—tries subjugating the entire world to the same immobility; as a matter of fact, he manages to do so with the Belgian Shepherd Malinois which he breeds, with a falcon tied to its perch, with Australian parakeets that he keeps caged, with his keeper-nurse, his sister and with the mother of both. Probably with the reader too, who will feel a cage closing in on him, gradually turning smaller. The sequence of events is worrisome and is stressful; it also offers multiple possibilities of interpretation, among them that the characters represent, in a metaphorical manner—and ironic—, collective realities. It is thus from the very subtitle of the book: “Treatise on the future of Latin America through an immobile man and his 30 Belgian Shepherds Malinois”: What or who governs us and where are we being led to (if we are going somewhere at all)? This novel proposes as fiction a series of events that finish not seeming so; perhaps they are real. The novel is accompanied by a 32-page full-color brochure, showing places, people, atmosphere, heroic dogs.
