What does the skin hide?
A cab ride to the hospital: Eligia’s face is disintegrating from the acid thrown at her by her ex-husband while they were signing the divorce papers. Mario, her 22-year-old son, tries to wipe the acid off Eligia’s face, but his own fingers burn.
What follows is a failed attempt to reconstruct Eligia’s face, first in Buenos Aires and then in Milan. Mario, the narrator, becomes the shadow and witness of the reconstruction attempts to repair his mother’s ravaged face. He must also confront his own terrible existence and identity, both linked to an Argentina that he sees disintegrating around him. Mario will tell us of his adventures in Milan as he tries to find answers to a host of questions. During this time he struggles with alcohol and loneliness; he meets Dina, a young prostitute with whom he maintains a relationship of some affection but of a certain apathy at the same time. A man who tries in various ways to find his way to his father and in this attempt to explain himself, justify his existence, find meaning and dare to be happy. A book full of inexplicable acts of violence; of suicides, quick by a bullet or slow by alcohol; of meaningless lives; of a filial duty that tastes of resentment and inability to love; and journeys that lead nowhere.
Based on the tragic lives of the renowned Raúl Barón Biza (wealthy politician and renowned writer) and his wife Rosa Clotilde Sabattini.
RELEVANT DATA: Based on a real and tragic family story (the renowned Raúl Barón Biza, a wealthy politician and renowned writer, and his wife Rosa Clotilde Sabattini), Jorge Barón Biza’s The Desert and its Seed was self-published in 1998, three years before the author committed suicide. Written with a captivating direct style and dark humor, it has become a great modern classic, published with enormous success throughout the Spanish-speaking world and translated into many languages.
What the critics have said:
“You will never read about the layers of the human body – literally – as in this book.” Goodreads
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: In development as a TV Series.
LANGUAGES AVAILABLE: Spanish, English, Italian, French, Dutch, German.
