Luis López Carrasco, the documentary filmmaker who became known for the film The year of discovery, is he winner of the Herald Award for Novelorganized by the Anagrama publishing house and endowed with 25,000 euros. The white desertthe award-winning work, is described by the jury’s minutes as the story of “nine strangers who flee in a balloon from bombing raids. They must decide which of them has to jump into the sea so that the rest can reach an island safely.” desert and start a new civilization. The travelers of the globe are the only survivors of a world war that has made the world as we know it disappear. What is at stake, in reality, is not the future of the human species, but a temporary job as a salesman in a department store.
When reading that description, should we think that The white desert it’s a comedy? Luis López Carrasco explains to EL MUNDO that he prefers to talk about “tragicomedy, a narrative with a light but also profound tone. I think it is a fun novel, which does not put the reader to the test but which has a melancholic and desolate background, which also It hits you”.
López Carrasco explains that his novel is based on “a narrator who, from an uncertain future, from a distant place, tells anecdotes but also moments of disappointment and happiness that explain his past, which is our present. In his story there are stories about the work, love and friendship “taken from the generational memory of Spaniards who faced the crisis and emigration in the 2010 crisis.”
Beneath this succession of anecdotes and behind the good mood, López Carrasco’s story tries to reach something deeper. “What is the purpose of distance in narration? It gives me historical perspective on my present, it allows me to identify structural issues that are not easy to see on a day-to-day basis but that condition us all.” The author explicitly refers to the success of far-right parties, “underground, dark, anti-democratic currents.”
“This novel is a bit dystopian but not quite. The future has gone badly but there is still room for utopia,” the author concludes.