Why was 'El odio', the book about the killer José Bretón, cancelled?

BarcelonaA year and a half after Anagrama "indefinitely suspended" the publication ofEl odio,, in which Luisgé Martín (Madrid, 1962) collected the letters he exchanged with José Bretón, who is serving a prison sentence for the murder of his two children, the Madrid-born author has announced the publication of a new book with Altamarea in which he will give his version of events and which will arrive in bookstores on September 30.

Desde el odio, prefaced by Sara Mesa – an author who has published her books with Anagrama for over a decade – claims to be "an urgent essay on the limits of writing, the responsibility of the reader, and the role of cultural institutions, publishers, bookstores, and media in the construction of the literary space".

Martín, who has previously published story collections such as El alma del erizo (Alfaguara, 2002) and Cien noches (Anagrama, 2020), recalls in Desde el odio how "the general pressure, the media frenzy, and the undeniable condemnation of social networks" prevented his book about "the attempt to understand how someone can kill their children" from "reaching readers". "No court banned it, nor did any law veto it, and yet, the book was not published," he recalls.

The accusation and the resolution of justice

The controversy surrounding El odio erupted in late March 2025, a few days before Anagrama published the book. After media reports revealed that Martín's narrative included intimate details and details of the murder, Ruth Ortiz, mother of the two children murdered by Bretón in Cordoba on October 8, 2011, requested protection from the Cordoba Prosecutor's Office through the Andalusian Victim Assistance Service (SAVA). Anagrama then announced that it was suspending distribution and would await the justice's resolution.

Weeks after Ortiz's complaint, on April 9, 2025, the Barcelona Court authorized the book's publication. A week later, Anagrama decided to terminate the contract it had signed with Luisgé Martín to publish and distribute El odio. "In a democratic society, there must be a balance between creative freedom as a fundamental right and other moral principles – Anagrama defended in the press release announcing the decision–. Therefore, we believe that works based on real events require a double dose of respect and sensitivity".

In Desde el odio, Luisgé Martín revisits the chronology of events "not only as an involuntary protagonist of a controversy with a hint of censorship, but as a writer who has spent thirty years exploring the most uncomfortable territories of the human condition", advances the Altamarea publishing house. Among these "territories" are the investigation into pedophilia in the novel La mujer de sombra (Anagrama, 2012) and the reflection on the "limits of sexual fetishes and paraphilias" in Soy yo normal? (Anagrama, 2022).