"It will be a decent novel, which is the saddest thing a novel can be," thinks one of the three protagonists of this story. I don't think this is the saddest thing that can be said about a novel, considering that we can dedicate the most insulting comments to it. But I understand what the narrator wants to express: by summing up the spirit of a book with the adjective correct We are sparing his life (in reality, we are concluding that this is a dispensable work). Many pages earlier, that same character, Miquel Rovira, awaits the trial of his rival, Ramón Balaguer (Ramón with an accent, a Catalan writer with a Castilian expression), about his latest novel, still unpublished.

Carlos Casajuana (Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1954) is one of the most subtly ironic novelists on the contemporary Catalan literary scene. Whether revisiting emblematic episodes such as Josep Carner's last trip to Catalonia (Return, 2017), of thrillers in which the business and political worlds are gracefully intertwined (A minor scandal, 2011), or daring to raise a farce about corruption within Barcelona City Council (The Devil's Pomps, 2019), the writer and retired diplomat – he has been ambassador to Greece, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United Kingdom – has built a prestigious career rewarded with awards such as the Ramon Llull, which he received in 2009 thanks to The last man who spoke Catalan. In The war within the war (Proa, 2025) revives the characters of the two Barcelona writers from that novel. Miquel Rovira is finishing a novel about the Civil War. The other, Ramón Balaguer, makes a living teaching in a literary workshop. They end up reuniting after making their differences in literature, politics, and love evident.