TE19 Iberian Adventure

Ricardo Menéndez Salmón

can’t imagine how itwould feel to have a violent, insane or famous father. My experience has been limited to that of being the son of a sick man. And it is that testimony which has motivated me to write this book. A book that has been imposed on me, one that is not the product of my mind’s free proclivity, my talent, or my spirit. As a writer, I have always gone in search of my books, I have approached them as a hunter approaches their prey. But this book has come in search of me, it has approached me as a courtier approaches the object of their desire. This book is not a debt. It is not a vindication. It is not even an offering. This book is a necessity, a figure that I must sculpt, a marble from which I must tear the slave within it in order to finally rid myself of it and to be able to carry on. If writing has any meaning at all, it must surely be found here, now, in the trajectory that leads from a kidnapped childhood to a man dying in a roomwithout prayers, books, or children’s laughter. And for once I cannot face this burden, for once I can’t turn to the imagination, to the plasticity of the novel or to the sagacity of the story, to the expedient which resolves this process. This time, it must be the experience itself, its decantation, the drawing of the old, renewed water of the family mill, that sets in motion the stone of memory and puts it in words. This time it is played on a different stage, for which no previous discipline has prepared me. I arrive at this book naked, as stripped of hope I entered the room of death on June 12, 2015.

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