10 Far from the train Antonia Vicens's novel strikes with unusual force, confirming, page after page, the indomitable talent of an already essential author. La Magrana's publication twenty-five years after the first edition is not only an act of justice, but above all an invitation to (re)discover a work that remains radically relevant. Cecilia's story, immersed in an emotional and physical vertigo marked by AIDS, unfolds with a disarming and visceral intensity: Vicens sugarcoats nothing, offers no protection to the reader, and it is precisely thanks to this naked and stark gaze that a most painful tragedy unfolds, leaving her a monstrous, unspeakable figure. The suffering, the fear, the delirium, the fragility, and the conversations and interactions with angels are not described, they are narrated and experienced in the first person through an incisive, wounding prose that transforms the reading into a raw, profound, and unforgettable experience, a relentless read that—I know this for a fact—is truly remarkable.

]]> There will be those who, with or without children, will take advantage of the opportunity to go to the movies these days, not only to cool off inside these true climate refuges, but above all to see films like the latest from a studio that has made us dream of many twists and turns. I'm talking about Pixar and its new adventure, entitled Elio and proposes a psycho-emotional defense of the beauty of otherness. It also conveys another equally important message: that, despite everything, we are not alone, and we always have the opportunity to be part of a larger community. In a time when the hate speech of the new, furious far right has returned, it is essential to rebuild bridges of belonging. With the happy publication of Mediterranean Breviary By Predrag Matvejević, in a masterful translation by Pau Sanchis Ferrer, LaBreu Edicions once again gives us a primordial work to understand the profound soul of this ancient and ever-living sea, although in recent years it has also reminded us that it is one of the greatest cemeteries on the planet. The book—with a moving prologue by the eternal Nobel laureate Claudio Magris and an epilogue by David Guzman, who has just been deservedly recognized with the Diffusion Prize—is much more than an essay: it is a lyrical, erudite, and sensorial ode to an aquatic symbolic, historical, and intimate space, a shared territory in which a single uniting substance reigns.

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