If I could turn back the clock and change the way I was for so many years, I would do it, but to say so now, when I already know the ending — even if I mean it — is false tender.
So I think about my unborn son, who will bear his name, and I ask myself how I’ll mold him, how I’ll fail him, what I’ll have to forgive him for, and what he’ll have to forgive me for when — if he doesn’t do it sooner — I, like my father, fade into nothingness.
What he’ll remember fondly about me.
I’d like to preseve some of the best of my father so that it passes on to him through me.
Madrid, April 16, 2009
A Note About the Author
Marcos Giralt Torrente was born in Madrid in 1968 and is the author of three novels, a novella, and a book of short stories. He was a writer in residence at the Royal Spanish Academy in Rome and at the University of Aberdeen, and was part of the Berlin Artists-in-Residence Program in 2002–2003. He is the recipient of several distinguished awards, including the Spanish National Book Award in 2011. His works have been translated into French, German, Greek, Italian, Korean, and Portuguese.
A Note About the Translator
Natasha Wimmer has translated Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, for which she was awarded the PEN Translation prize in 2009, and The Savage Detectives, among many other works. She lives in New York City.