About this Event
Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Wednesday, April 29 at 7:00 PM when Miguel Ángel Hernández comes to the store to share his new novel The Pain of Others. Miguel will be joined in conversation by Alex Saum-Pascual and will sign copies of his book after the presentation.
to preorder a copy of The Pain of Others.
On Christmas Eve 1995, Miguel Ángel Hernández’ best friend murdered his sister and took his own life by jumping off a cliff. It happened in a small hamlet in the Murcia countryside. No one ever knew why. The investigation was closed, and the crime forgotten.
20 years later, when the wounds seem to have stopped bleeding and the mourning died down, Miguel decides to return to the countryside and, putting himself in the shoes of a detective, tries to reconstruct that tragic night that marked the end of his adolescence. But travelling in time always means altering the past, and the investigation will awaken ghosts that he thought he had left behind: a childhood marked by the Church, by sin and guilt; the constant presence of illness and death; the oppressive, closed world from which he managed to escape.
This raw, moving novel about the collision of two worlds and two ways of life is a reckoning with the past and, above all, a subtle and incisive meditation on the ethics of literature, which makes us aware that “writing isn’t always a triumph, that sometimes, we too may founder upon the pain of others.”
MIGUEL ÁNGEL HERNÁNDEZ is a Spanish writer best known for his works of fiction, among them the novels Intento de escapada (2013), which won the Premio Ciudad Alcalá de Narrativa and was translated into five languages, El instante de peligro (2015), which was a finalist for the Premio Herralde de Novela, and El dolor de los demás (2018), which was selected as a book of the year by El País and the New York Times en Español. Hernández teaches art history at the University of Murcia and has authored several books on art and visual culture. His novel Anoxia was published by Other Press in 2025.
ALEX SAUM-PASCUAL is a digital poet and Associate Professor of Spanish Literature and New Media at the University of California, Berkeley. She’s author of numerous works on digital art and literature in the Spanish-speaking world. Her digital poetry has been exhibited internationally, and is studied in specialized monographs and anthologies. At UC Berkeley, she serves on the Executive Committee of the Center for New Media and co-directs Spanish Studies (Institute of European Studies). She is a board member of the Electronic Literature Organization, series editor of Electronic Literature at Bloomsbury Academic Press, and Editor of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies.
THIS EVENT is free but registration is requested. Registration ends at 6:00 pm on April 29.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Mrs Dalloway's, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, United States
USD 0.00
