The Family

Pre-order for delivery on publication (1st July 2026) or subscribe to receive it early. ‘There are no secrets in this family!’ proclaims Damián, the father, triumphantly. A secular idealist obsessed with morality and order, he is blind to the cracks in his home’s foundations, the oppression that pervades it, and the elaborate fictions his wife and four children devise to survive it. While he quotes Gandhi and expounds on the virtues of education, charity and thrift, the children retreat into humiliated compliance or seek freedom in the most dangerous of places. Through a mosaic of interlinked tales, spanning decades, acclaimed Spanish author Sara Mesa turns her unflinching gaze to the family as institution: the ideologies that shape it, the silences that undermine it, and the authority you can never quite escape. Translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore 250pp, paperback with flaps, £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-916806-26-9 Publication date: 1 July 2026