Synopsis "The False Step (Small Stations Fiction)"
Manuel Bugallal is a student of English Philology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where he likes to read, admire girls, and hit the town when he gets the chance. His brother, Roi, is working on a short-term contract for a telecommunications company in Dublin, and Manuel, having got drunk the night before, pays him a visit. His brother would like to be offered a permanent position, but is aware this will be difficult, and Manuel laments the fact his studies will lead to a job in the civil service or a precarious existence. The fact of emigration is obscured by study grants, work experience, and language qualifications. He thinks it will do him good to study outside Galicia for a year and opts for Madrid, where he writes an Impressionist diary and is analyzed by those who meet him. He falls for a Greek woman. On his return to Santiago, he feels like an impostor - he hasn't had to suffer hardships like his parents, he hasn't endured a war, and yet he believes in the power of culture and art to transform things. He settles down to write a novel. The narrator's obsession with his formation as an artist mirrors that of Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses and Adrián Solovio in the Galician equivalent, Ramón Otero Pedrayo's Circling. Abraham Pérez is the author of a novel, The False Step, and a book of short stories, Life Burning, in his native Galician. He is an accomplished poet with several collections, including Fragment/Break, a theory for spectres, and the transparent body of hours, this last translated into French. He has published an essay, Silk Hoe, and a diary, Seagulls Stained with Oil, translated into Portuguese. The False Step was shortlisted for two major Galician literary awards, the Torrente Ballester and the Illa Nova.
