La piel del miedo

This book inaugurates the new publishing imprint: Dragon Books, which aims, through its books, to make beauty a tool for reflection and criticism. The works that make up the catalog, whether they are for children, young people, fiction or non-fiction, seek, from the singularity, to please the reader's desire to find their own meanings; that is, a living literature that raises questions and arouses curiosity in all its readers.

La piel del miedo is set in the fifties in a small, provincial town, hidden between volcanoes and mountains. The protagonist, Javier Villamar, sinks into the shifting sands of his past and recalls episodes from his childhood and adolescence, at the time of his first epileptic seizure. Thus, the reader will be able to get to know and delve into his violent past, which is marked by abandonment, illness, suspicion and a gallery of amazing and tragic characters.

About the author

Javier Vásconez was born in Quito and studied in Spain and Paris. In 1982 he began his narrative career with Ciudad lejana, and in 1983 he won the first mention in Plural magazine in Mexico with "Angelote, amor mío". His work includes the books of short stories: El hombre de la mirada oblicua (1989) and Café Concert (1994), and the novel El viajero de Praga (Alfaguara, 1996), which received great public and critical acclaim both in Latin America and Europe. That same year, he published the novel El secreto. His anthology of short stories, Un extraño en el puerto (Alfaguara, 1998), marked a moment of maturity in his narrative. In 1999 he published La sombra del apostador (Alfaguara), a novel that was a finalist for the Rómulo Gallegos Prize. In 2003 he published the short story "Thecla teresina", in 2004 the compilation Invitados de honor, in 2005 his espionage novel El retorno de las moscas (Alfaguara) and in 2007 Jardín Capelo. In 2009 a selection of his short stories appeared in Spain under the title Estación de lluvia. In 2010 he published La piel del miedo. Fondo de Cultura Económica published Novelas a la sombra with a prologue by Christopher Domínguez. In 2017 Pre-Textos published the sixth edition of El viajero de Praga with a foreword by Juan Villoro. The Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, in 2018 published Cuentos reunidos with a foreword by Mexican writer Pedro Ángel Palou. In 2019, the author published Roldán with illustrations by Jorge Verlarde. In 2021 the publishing house Pre-textos published his latest novel Coleccionista de sombras.