Cuentas pendientes

How much misfortune and despair can fit into the life of a simple man? To Do Lists is a portrait of a life in which failure touches everything. There is nothing in the pathetic routine of Giménez, this book's protagonist, which does not deserve the highest degree of compassion. The thing is, the narrator responsible for him doesn't have a drop of it. Novels which deal with spiritless and terrible lives usually encourage a promise of the liberating power of the imagination. What Martin Kohan explores in this book is a different option: that of imagination as punishment, and literature as a stronghold of the last vestiges of desperation.