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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Maren Wiederhold |
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LA CIUDAD DE LAS LUCES MUERTAS
In his new novel, David Uclés constructs a narrative in which word, painting, music, and performance act as the deep conscience of society, forces capable of illuminating it when everything seems on the brink of disappearance.
Set in a Barcelona suddenly drenched into actual darkness, this novel is a daring literary fantasia. It brings together real historical writers, artists and intellectuals from different generations, collapsing time into a single, urgent night in which words are world changing the arts become society's conscience.Blending symbolism, speculative fiction, historical novel and intellectual adventure, the book imagines Barcelona as a living archive of memory, ideology and artistic resistance.
In this liminal space between history and fiction, between memory and desire, the characters discover that literature is both a refuge and a way of seeing the world. In a Barcelona plunged into darkness and fractured by overlapping eras, a group of writers, intellectuals and activists faces a monumental task: restoring light to the city before the shadows consume it forever. Everything begins when Carmen Laforet discovers an invitation to a clandestine literary encounter. What seems like a literary coincidence draws her into a whirlwind of conspiracies, time travel and encounters with historical and literary figuresfrom Jean Genet and Mercè Rodoreda to Simone Weil, Picasso and Julio Cortázarwho coexist in a labyrinthine city besieged by fear. As the city loses its light, from journalists, painters, poets, detectives to activistssome dead, some not yet bornare forced to collaborate in order to understand what has happened and how to restore clarity, both literal and moral. At the center of the story lies a radical idea: that literature itself can alter reality, that words can trigger catastrophesor save entire cities.
David Uclés (Úbeda, 1990) a translation and Interpreting graduate, is an author, musician, illustrator, and translator. He has worked as a Spanish, German, French and English teacher in various countries and now writes for La Vanguardia, El País, Diario Jaén, and La SER. Born in Úbeda, he was named the city's hijo predilecto (distinguished native) in 2025.
In this liminal space between history and fiction, between memory and desire, the characters discover that literature is both a refuge and a way of seeing the world. In a Barcelona plunged into darkness and fractured by overlapping eras, a group of writers, intellectuals and activists faces a monumental task: restoring light to the city before the shadows consume it forever. Everything begins when Carmen Laforet discovers an invitation to a clandestine literary encounter. What seems like a literary coincidence draws her into a whirlwind of conspiracies, time travel and encounters with historical and literary figuresfrom Jean Genet and Mercè Rodoreda to Simone Weil, Picasso and Julio Cortázarwho coexist in a labyrinthine city besieged by fear. As the city loses its light, from journalists, painters, poets, detectives to activistssome dead, some not yet bornare forced to collaborate in order to understand what has happened and how to restore clarity, both literal and moral. At the center of the story lies a radical idea: that literature itself can alter reality, that words can trigger catastrophesor save entire cities.
David Uclés (Úbeda, 1990) a translation and Interpreting graduate, is an author, musician, illustrator, and translator. He has worked as a Spanish, German, French and English teacher in various countries and now writes for La Vanguardia, El País, Diario Jaén, and La SER. Born in Úbeda, he was named the city's hijo predilecto (distinguished native) in 2025.
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Book
Published 2026-02-04 by Destino |