Winner of the 2013 Alfaguara Novel Prize, one of the most significant prizes in the Spanish language When Samuel receives a call out of the blue about the death of his lover Clara, his own numbing existence seems about to come to an end. Does it matter that he never knew Clara? And, if he invents a past for his love and his loss, could he even fake his way through her funeral? Unable to pass up the chance at leading a new life, Samuel leads himself down a path of lies, until he can no longer distinguish between what is real and what he has invented. Ovejero's existential thriller of first mistaken and then stolen identity brilliantly exposes the fictions people create to sustain themselves in a dehumanising modern world. Translated from the Spanish by Simon Deefholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles