One of the most interesting visitors that the 83rd Madrid Book Fair has had came to us from Mexican lands, although in reality we are talking about an author born in Spain. Pau Luque (Barcelona, 1982) has lived in Mexico City for a decade, where he is a researcher in Philosophy of Law at the Institute of Philosophical Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In 2020 he won the Anagrama Essay Prize with the celebrated work Things as they are and other fantasiesa celebration of the imagination where Luque reflected on the relationship between fiction and morality with the constant presence of the writer Iris Murdoch.
In 2022, the essay appeared in the collection “New Anagrama Notebooks”. Moral hypochondria, co-written with the Mexican philosopher and scientist Natalia Carrillo. “Oh, friends, be disillusioned: what matters when it comes to writing is the same as what matters when it comes to living: leaving beautiful ruins, beautifying the world with a few more handfuls of rubble,” can be read in this 120 page work.
Last March Anagrama published Wildebeest, Luque’s latest book. A work that is difficult to classify and moves between a novel and a philosophical essay. A praise to secrets, mistakes, errors and contradictions. An illuminating anti-help book nurtured by diverse characters from different cities around the world.
‘Nu’ by Pau Luque
Pau Luque is signing in the booth The Mistrala bookstore founded by three Argentines that has been in the center of Madrid since 2021. With permission from readers who are waiting for the writer’s signature on one of his books, we chatted briefly with him.
Tell us about the latest book you published, the unclassifiable Wildebeest.
This is a strange book. It’s true. Although it is a very strange way to start selling a book. It is an essay with quite normal characters where I take episodes from their daily lives to explore and think about some philosophical ideas. As my friend Jazmina Barrera says, it is philosophy of flesh and blood.
Is this your first time at the Madrid Book Fair?
If it’s my first time. He had never been, neither as an author nor as a reader.
And how was the experience?
Lovely. I’m only there for two days, but the weather is good, I’ve met very good people and there are many readers. I dont have nothing to complaint about (laughter).
Finally, what novelty do you recommend to read this summer?
God strike down whoever writes about me by Aura García-Junco, recently published in Spain by the publishing house Sexto Piso. A very beautiful, very sensitive and very lucid book where the author writes about her relationship with her father.
