The childhood of the Palma-born writer Miquel Àngel Llauger is marked by a disappointment that he has just recounted in his latest book of memoirs, a booklet entitled Whale diptych (Ensiola Editorial). It was early 1973, and I was nine years old. Franco was still more than two and a half years away from death. The country was glued to the images arriving from Nicaragua, in Central America, where on the night of December 23, 1972, an earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale had devastated the prosperous capital, Managua. The press reported more than 10,000 deaths, although the true number was never known. There were another 20,000 injured and an undetermined number of missing. The scene was apocalyptic, with its historic center in ruins. More than half of the 400,000 people who lived in the city lost their homes. The tragedy was worse than the one experienced with the 1931 earthquake.