Alec, a middle-aged draftsman, and Eve, a mythical best-selling novelist, are the only inhabitants of a tiny islet along the Atlantic coast. They avoid each other until one day when all media and forms of communication inexplicably stop working, forcing them out of their self-protective loneliness. What exactly is going on? Has the planet undergone some cataclysm after constant threats of nuclear conflict and large-scale terrorist attacks? What has happened on the nearby islands, in the rest of the country, and on the rest of the planet? The author reflects on this novel: “I needed to seek out in fiction the hope that I can no longer find in real History. This is how these “unexpected brothers” came to life in my spirit, loyal heirs to the miracle of ancient Greece.”
 
Amin Maalouf has imagined a complex, distressing thriller with roots in mythology that tunes in to the crisis which our world is currently living through. Although written before the pandemic, it is impossible not to find echoes of it in these disoriented times, when our planet is threatened like never before  (J.-C. P. Livres Hebdo).
 
Casa Árabe, the Alianza Editorial publishing firm and the Fundación Tres Culturas have organized this presentation with Amin Maalouf and Inés Martín Rodrigo, from ABC Cultural. Giving the presentation is José Manuel Cervera, director of the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation. The event will be moderated by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s International Relations Coordinator.