Espacio vital

Living space -originally published as Elbow Room in 1977- is the epitome of what James Alan McPherson meant to the literature of his time, which is also ours. Being a black writer in the United States marked both McPherson's writing and the perception that the literary world that he lived in had of him, a world in which, with the blow of elbows, he knew how to open a vital space where he allowed himself to be authentic. The twelve stories that are collected in this volume, with which McPherson became the first African-American author to receive a Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category (in 1978), continue to appeal to a strangely familiar world of inequality and injustice, of violence and misunderstandings, but also of struggle and vindication. An irrefutable example of McPherson's narrative prowess, with a characteristic light-hearted tone brimming with humor and bringing the stories closer to oral narrative. Vital space continues to question us despite the years that have passed. McPherson, at the time, took responsibility for conceiving these unforgettable stories; It is now our responsibility to read them and try to make the world they reflect a different place and, if we are lucky, a better place.