Albert Sánchez Piñol (Barcelona, ​​1965) is a novelist who possesses the virtues of audacity and a keen sense of timing. This, I believe, is undeniable, regardless of whether you like his novels or not. When I say he has the virtue of audacity, I mean that he conceives narrative projects that are grand in both ambition and capacity to surprise, and that he dares to attempt to execute them without resorting to specious precautions or reining in his imagination. And when I say he has the virtue of a keen sense of timing, I mean that he knows how to read the signs and interests of each historical moment and, with a threefold literary, political, and anthropological perspective, knows how to incorporate them into his novels. He demonstrated this with Victus and the commemoration of the tercentenary of the fall of Barcelona against the Bourbon troops in the War of the Spanish Succession. He demonstrated this with The monster of Saint Helena and the desire to reinterpret reality through the lens of feminist justice that sparked the Me Too movementAnd he proves it again now with After the shipwreck and the vengeful resentment and the miasma of disappointment and shame that the failure of the independence process has instilled in Catalan society.