Are we who we think we are, or are we what other people want us to be? That’s the fundamental question that finds a profound answer in this short masterpiece by Hector Tizón, which was published for the first time in 1988 and has been translated into English and French. A man fleeing for his life arrives at a remote, desolate town where he’ll find refuge as long as he accepts the role that the people want to give him; that of a kind of Messiah. This story of a character forced to become someone else is told in beautiful, melancholy but stark prose exploring timeless problems inherent to the human condition: identity, the power of desire and the diffuse boundaries between dreams and reality.