Leer la mente

What happens in my brain when I read a novel or a short story? How and when did they appear? What part of the mind invents happy anecdotes or tragic endings? Why do we suffer or rejoice with the characters in stories, and how do we, the readers, become those characters? Isn't the self our greatest invention? In this brilliant and provocative essay, Jorge Volpi dispels the old notion of fiction as mere entertainment and argues, on the contrary, that novels and short stories have been essential to the evolution of the human species.