David Uclés in conversation with Anna Sàez

CHRISTMAS AWARD 2026.
By the author of “The Peninsula of the Empty Houses”.

It all begins in post-war Barcelona, ​​when a girl accidentally causes a phenomenon that plunges the city into total darkness. Light disappears from Barcelona for a whole day, both solar and artificial. Only a subtle clarity that no one knows where it comes from and the glow of fire survive. The Barcelonas that have existed converge and overlap in the same place: disappeared buildings reappear and others from the future emerge. In this territory where times and perspectives that were never supposed to coincide coexist, the city is overwhelmed by all its eras. The event will cause a handful of writers and artists to come back to life and cross paths in unlikely encounters. Thus, Picasso will make Simone Weil cry, and Cortázar will portray Laforet; Gaudí will varnish passersby; Bolaño will anticipate his death; García Márquez will flee in a boat and George Orwell will protect Montserrat Caballé, Núria Espert and Jordi Savall from the projectiles of war. In the midst of this rupture in time, a photographer capable of revealing with his camera what has not yet happened and many other characters will unite their arts to try to understand what has happened and how to recover the lost light.

In his new novel, David Uclés constructs a story in which words, paintings, music and scenes act as the deep conscience of society; they are the ones that can illuminate it when everything seems to be lost. A dazzling story, by an author as innovative as he is unique, that reminds us that light returns when someone dares to imagine it.

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