Ortega y Gasset, Antonio Machado, Pío Baroja…

Ortega y Gasset, Antonio Machado, Pío Baroja… Spanish literature has given me some memorable reads. None, however, have provoked in me a feeling similar to what I experienced after coming into contact with Unamuno, who seemed like a family member to me. There are cases like this in literature: a line separates admiration, empathy, and appreciation from this unmistakable feeling of identification. And it is always special to see in an author a member of one’s own species, whose concerns are those intimately felt, whose expression vocalizes something that could be said by oneself. Rare, but when it occurs, it shows that there is no untransmittable individuality; there have always been and always will be others who, through literature, can understand.