Los peces de la amargura

An overwhelming literary testimony on the thorny issue of ETA violence. It is difficult to start reading the initially modest stories, of a deceptive simplicity in The Fishes of Bitterness, and not feel moved, shaken -sometimes, outraged- by the human truth of which they are made, an extremely painful subject for so many and so many victims of the crime based on the political excuse, but that only an exceptional narrator like Aramburu manages to count in a truthful and credible way. A father clings to his routines and hobbies, like taking care of the fish, to cope with the disorder of a hospitalized and invalid daughter; a married couple, annoyed by the harassment of the fanatics against a neighbor, hope and wish that he would leave once and for all; a young man remembers his playmate, who will later be a playmate; a woman resists sieges and threats as much as she can before leaving... In the form of chronicles or reports, first-person testimonies, letters or stories told to her children, Los peces de la amargura collects fragments of lives in which without apparent drama, indirectly or unexpectedly -that is, effective-, emotion appears and, with it, the denunciation and homage.