Miguel Martínez-Lage Libri

Junot Diaz made his remarkable debut as a writer with this collection of stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey. The stories are all unflinching and strong and Diaz's prose crackles with an electric sense of discovery. In 'Ysrael', two brothers hunt a disfigured boy who hides behind a mask; in 'No Face', the mirror is flipped and the perspective belongs to the tormented. In 'Fiesta 1980', a spirited family gathering plays against the noiseless hum of a father's infidelities. In 'Boyfriend', a young man eavesdrops on the woman next door and colours in the life overheard with his own intense longing. There is an urgency and clarity to these beautifully crafted stories that renders them entirely of the moment. Diaz has veered off the well-travelled roads of contemporary fiction and captured a range of experience previously uncharted and now emphatically his own.

Imprescindible complemento ensayístico de las novelas 1984 y Rebelión en la granja, la presente antología reúne una treintena de textos escritos entre 1937 y 1949 en los que George Orwell analiza y denuncia los totalitarismos que marcaron el siglo XX. El autor pasa revista a temas tan diversos como la guerra civil española, el imperialismo británico, la obra de Arthur Koestler, la mentalidad nacionalista, el inicio de la «guerra fría» (expresión que acuñó) o la figura de Gandhi, pero siempre hace hincapié en el pensamiento crítico, evaluando los hechos sin aceptar simplificaciones partidistas ni generalizaciones fáciles. En el contexto actual de manipulación, fake news y opiniones vacuas, sus palabras nos animan a estar siempre alerta, primera forma de resistencia frente a la amenaza latente de la opresión.

Fifteen-year-old Jim Taylor becomes the target of revenge when he finds a computer disc containing vital drug trafficking information stashed in a record sleeve borrowed from the library.