Wars do not end, but rather accumulate and, with them, forced movements of people: exiles, refugees, displaced persons, they can be called in many ways, but they are the non-fatal victims. When, among these exiles, there are writers, they usually leave texts tinged with sadness or melancholy for the lost homeland. What is not so common is that the texts take on a literary form close to fantasy, and I say close only because Desaparèixer, this perfectly geared nouvelle, with its feet in a Europe that has lost its identity and its head in a phantasmagoric world, has vanishing points that escape the realist corset. The oscillation between realism and fantasy makes one think of an acrobat walking a tightrope over European cities, train stations, impersonal hotel rooms, escape rooms, and circus rings to a point of no return from which one's own identity is completely interchangeable. As Joseph Roth said: "What is a man without papers? Less than a paper without men!"

The journey is one of the foundational myths of literary history. Literally, it represents the adventure of leaving or returning home, and metaphorically, it encapsulates the full meaning of any form of inner experience involving personal movement or evolution.Odyssey from Homer to theUlysses by James Joyce. From Quixote From Cervantes to the adventures of Jules Verne. From Goethe's coming-of-age novels to Mark Twain's picaresque tales. From Moby Dick Melville's journey through the paradises of Aurora Bertrana...

Journalist and writer Maria Stepànova (Moscow, 1972), a self-proclaimed great admirer of Mercè Rodoreda, had a bumpy trip to Barcelona, ​​where she is participating in the CCCB's international residency program. She experienced something similar to M., the protagonist of her book. Disappear (Angle / Cliff), translated into Catalan by Miquel Cabal Guarro. M. is an exiled writer who no longer writes and suffers many misunderstandings and setbacks while trying to reach a literary festival. There is a moment when she glimpses the possibility of freeing herself from her former life. She can get a job in a circus and be someone else. Is it really possible to get rid of one's own identity? Is it legitimate to desire it? What responsibility do we have for the atrocities committed in our country? Who owns a language? It is almost impossible to label. Disappear, It moves between essay, autobiography, and the absurd, and Stepànova's poetic voice resonates throughout. With a great sense of humor, the writer, who lives in exile in Berlin, raises many of the great questions of our time.