THE FAMILY

Synopsis

‘There are no secrets in this family!’ proclaims Damián, the father, triumphantly. A secular idealist obsessed with morality and order, he is blind to the cracks in his home’s foundations, the oppression that pervades it, and the elaborate fictions his wife and four children devise to survive it. While he quotes Gandhi and expounds on the virtues of education, charity and thrift, the children retreat into humiliated compliance or seek freedom in the most dangerous of places.

Through a mosaic of interlinked tales, spanning decades, acclaimed Spanish author Sara Mesa turns her unflinching gaze to the family as institution: the ideologies that shape it, the silences that undermine it, and the authority you can never quite escape.

Translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore

Author

Sara Mesa is the author of eight works of fiction, including Un Amor (Selected as the ‘Best Book of 2020’ by El País, La Vanguardia, El Cultural and El Correo, and now a feature film), Scar (winner of the Ojo Critico Prize), Four by Four (a finalist for the Herralde Prize), An Invisible Fire (winner of the Premio Málaga de Novela), Among the Hedges, and La Familia. Her work has been translated into eighteen languages, and she has been widely praised for her concise, sharp writing style.