Cumpleaños

Fifty years. An early birthday, anticipated not for what he's leaving behind, but for what lies ahead; it arrives and passes without fanfare, and only a few months later, a seemingly banal comment, revealing a misunderstanding, leads César Aira to sit in a bar or café, as he always does, and write. As he recounts anecdotes and weaves together memories, the author reflects on the origin of his certainties, on the inability to truly live, on literature understood both from the perspective of the writer and the reader, on ignorance and knowledge, on death.