Eduardo Halfon and Passa Porta have a long history. The author of the unforgettable Monastery and The Polish Boxer, the great Guatemalan writer has already honoured the international house of literature with several visits. In addition to writing ‘Ashes’, an unpublished text for ‘Ghost Stories’, the opening night of the festival on 28 March, he will engage in an in-depth interview about his latest novel, Tarántula, a remarkable and chilling work.

Eduardo Halfon was born in 1971 in Guatemala, leaving for the US at the age of 10, before returning after many years. His grandparents and great-grandparents came from countries as diverse as Ukraine, Egypt, Palestine, Spain, Lebanon, Syria and Poland. Identity, uprooting and intimacy are recurrent themes in his books, which all present a different facet of a masterly autobiographical body of work.

between reality and fiction

His latest book, Tarántula, has just been awarded the Prix Médicis. It goes back to the time when, in 1984, two young brothers exiled in the US return to Guatemala, in the heart of the Altiplano forest, to take part in a survival camp for Jewish children where their parents sent them so that they would not forget their roots. But one morning, the children discover that the camp has been transformed into something much darker. At the epicentre of the narrator’s childhood trauma, this episode will only begin to be clarified years later through chance encounters – in Paris with a Salinger reader turned lawyer and in Berlin with a former chief instructor of the camp.

Interweaving ghosts of the past and present, reality and fiction, Eduardo Halfon approaches the foundations of his identity in Tarántula like never before: the strict and rigorous framework of Judaism and the enveloping and maternal bosom of Guatemala.

After an online meeting in 2021, Eduardo Halfon will sit down, in person this time, with Flemish writer and critic Roderik Six for a promising interview.

‘Ferociousness blends with consolation in this poignant narrative that unfolds like a dark tale in which Halfon once again examines and questions identity and its transmission.’

Télérama – Nathalie Crom

‘Permeated by a gravity unprecedented in Halfon, this tense novel masterfully explores the possibility of sorting through his traumas and his roots.’

Le Monde des Livres – Ariane Singer

about the author

Eduardo Halfon was born in Guatemala in 1971 and spent part of his youth in the US, where he studied industrial engineering and then literature. After his studies, he returned to the country of his birth to teach literature at university. He then lived in the US, Spain and France before settling in Berlin with his wife and son. The author of several novels and collections of short stories translated into some fifteen languages, he was awarded the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature in Guatemala in 2018. In France, his book Signor Hoffman received the 2015 Roger Caillois Prize and Duelo the 2018 Prix du Meilleur Livre étranger. Published in September 2024, Tarántula was awarded the Prix Médicis étranger.

About the moderator

Roderik Six (b. 1979) is a literary critic for Knack. He won the literary prize De Bronzen Uil for his first novel Vloed. His second novel Val was awarded the triennial literature prize of the province of West Flanders. His novels Volt and Monster have also been widely acclaimed. Roderik Six lives and works in Ghent.