Le dedico mi silencio

Toño Azpilcueta spends his days between his work at a school, his family and his great passion, Creole music, which he has been researching since his youth. One day, a call changes his life. An invitation to go listen to an unknown guitarist, Lalo Molfino, a character that no one knows much about but of great talent, seems to confirm all his intuitions: the deep love he feels for Peruvian waltzes, marineras, polkas and huainos has one more reason. beyond the pleasure of listening to them (or dancing to them). Perhaps what happens is that Creole music is, in reality, not only a hallmark of an entire country and an expression of that very Peruvian attitude of huachafería ("Peru's greatest contribution to universal culture", according to Toño Azpilcueta), but something much more important: an element capable of provoking a social revolution, of breaking down prejudices and racial barriers to unite the entire country in a fraternal and mestizo embrace. In a country fractured and devastated by the violence of the Shining Path, music could be what reminds everyone who makes up society that, above anything else, they are brothers and compatriots. And in this, it is possible that Lalo Molfino's guitar virtuosity has a lot to do with it. Toño Azpilcueta decides to investigate more about Molfino, travel to his place of origin, meet this elusive character, learn about his history, his family and loves, how he became such an excellent guitarist. And he also intends to write a book to tell the history of Creole music and develop that idea that the discovery of this extraordinary musician has inoculated in his mind. Fiction and essay are thus masterfully intertwined in this novel in which the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner returns to a topic that has obsessed him for years: utopias. That is what Toño Azpilcueta ultimately pursues: the utopia of generating, through art, an idea of a country.