Edward Halfon (Guatemala, 1971) trials, in a previously published study, narrative project goes on and recreates a literary universe we are familiar with in each of his books, stories Recalling about family, father, grandparents, or acquaintances, the Guatemalan does not downplay other literary proposals he offers on occasions that are as varied as interesting, and adds identity issues, although memory, the precise role of profession, uprooting, and destiny or family ups and downs, in his home country and elsewhere where the narrator has accumulated his experiences. Submit a new offer now, “any son” (2022), a text that adds to the author’s unexplored concept of paternity. Halfon wrote this book to chronicle the first five years of his son’s life, and he writes with full awareness of his role and the implications of fatherhood, and despite potential contradictions, every new father will not be able to stop reading what Guatemala has written. thinks about it. In the case of ‘Un hijo cualquiera’, his absolute hero will be his five-year-old son, thus making this book a mutual learning with which he shared so much in his early years. like father and son. In keeping with this parent-child relationship, the budding writer will begin to explain the reading process, which will eventually lead to a solid career as a writer. And at the same time, he will record the importance of his previous desire as a reader and write about this concept and his own consequences, a first reader, a true junkie at the very moment he discovers literature, because he sees reading as a drug; a second craftsman reader to make up when the young engineer wants to learn to write, and the third, final stage, son-of-a-bitch reader, or the impatient reader who no longer has time to read weak and careless prose. It would be fair to underestimate the possibility of a fourth reader not mentioned by the author himself. half After the passage of time, the reader becomes an ardent reader of what he sees fit, returning to the books deemed necessary in his description of these possible stages he has accomplished. During that reading process with his son, an unbreakable, singular relationship of affection begins by imitating his father, moving his lips silently in front of a book, although it is obvious that he does not know how to read yet.
Edward Halfon offers “any son”, as usual in his narrative, characteristic brevity, both in chapters and in the story to be told, as if the process of brevity itself led to the structuring of the whole and formed the final story; In fact, eighteen short texts arranged to take us on a journey through time in literature, in the author’s life, through the story of his son, because the structure Halfon uses is the structure of a storyteller. not only in its brevity, but also in its intent that moves the reader to the intensity of the reading. Undoubtedly, ‘Un hijo cualquiera’ is a bold proposal, a text written with absolute freedom and revealing the complex experience between the two. father and sonWhile trying to discover a different Halfon that does not forget its literary origins and manages to impress its readers; Although Halfon insists on the context from which he came, that clear and bitter look that reminds him of his origins, he returns to his childhood, adolescence and youth and recalls the shared experiences of a shaken Guatemalan immersed in guerrilla conflict. Since government and death are always in the background, he does not even forget the pages about love and friendship, his conscious literary profession or his constant complaint to build a better world.
Memory, novel or personal diary, Edward Halfon any of his texts to fiction, to literature in the broadest sense, to family past and present, to friends and acquaintances who take part in his stories, and to the many characters in his books, a father and prospective parents, starring a father who wrote and narrated the ‘Everybody’s Son’ Story and other experiences, and Between the importance of the duality and her relationship with her young child, once she’s finished reading it, it will be impossible for her to choose between them. two characters
“any son”
Writer: Edward Halfon.
editorial: Asteroid Books. Barcelona, 2022.