El miedo de los niños

The fear of children is set in a time when children spent a large part of their lives on the street, playing, telling stories in low voices. One of them is the legend of consumptives: men in white coats who come from secret sanatoriums in the Sierra to steal blood from children. Bernardo and Esteban share between games and walks through the town the excitement at the fear of their own stories, in doing so confusing the signs of a real threat. This narrative arises from the seed of a childhood fear that over the years has germinated in the imagination of Antonio Muñoz Molina until it sprouts with the urgent perfection of an epiphany. The pleasure of scary stories invented in childhood and the suspicion of the presence of a cruel adult are magnificently represented in the play of light and shadow of Maria Rosa Aránega's overwhelming illustrations.