El Hombre Amansado / The Tamed Man

Castellanos Moya turns to the character in Moronga, his previous novel, to portray the paranoia and the rootlessness of a man forced to migrate due to violence. Erasmo Aragâon suffers an abrupt shift in his life when he loses his job after being falsely accused of sexual abuse. The strain triggered by this incident drives him to bury his memories. Subdued by his anti-anxiety medication, he leaves behind the disinhibited man he once was and transforms into a paranoid tortured being in a constant state of alertness. During his rediscovery, he will meet Joselin, a nurse working at the psychiatric clinic where he receives treatment, and to whom he clings on to like a red-hot nail. In order to sever all connections to his past, Erasmo starts a new life in Sweden by her side, buried under an avalanche of discontent and dependence. In this brief but intense novel, Horacio Castellanos Moya tackles one of the key elements in his work: the rootlessness local conflicts pose to people of several regions of Latin America--people who have been denied a life, irreparably condemned to roam the earth. Erasmo Aragâon gives a voice to those that dwell between two worlds, with one foot in their homeland and another in countries that turn hostile on them. While they try to find a certain balance, the sureness of a home slips through their fingers.