Rafael Chirbes, who died in August 2015 after being diagnosed with incurable lung cancer, accepted his role as the defiant, intrepid author who bears witness, who acts as counterbalance to the forces of power, of corruption and of greed and misery, yet writes lucidly, and even at times tenderly. “Literature obliges a radical practice, it demands a form of aloneness that yes, at times can be almost unbearable: but it’s a matter of old virtues and harsh discipline.” Writing was his form of observing and expiating his own inconsistencies and primal urges — sex, power, money — in their modern iterations — real estate speculation, prostitution and human trafficking, political debauchery — and challenging readers to look into his pages as into a dark mirror, to see the ghostly reflection of their own faces looking back. What redeems these scathing truths — for a writer with this experience and depth of insight — is art.
Valerie Miles