Barcelona is shrouded in mystery in David Uclés’s newly released novel, La ciudad de las luces muertas (The City of Dead Lights), a work recently awarded the prestigious Premio Nadal. The novel unfolds over a single 24-hour period as the Catalan capital experiences a complete and unexplained blackout,prompting a search for answers among its artistic and intellectual community. Uclés, who began writing the book after relocating to barcelona in 2022, blends magical realism with social commentary, offering a multi-layered narrative open to varied interpretations of the city’s sudden darkness.
Barcelona plunges into an eerie, perpetual night in David Uclés’s latest novel, La ciudad de las luces muertas (The City of Dead Lights), a story where time itself becomes fractured. The book, which recently won the prestigious Premio Nadal award, is a “chorus novel” that echoes themes from his previous work, La península de las casas vacías, unfolding entirely over the course of 24 hours.
The author, originally from Úbeda, returns to his signature blend of magical realism in a narrative populated by artists, writers, intellectuals, and musicians. Even Olympic medalist Fermín Cacho makes a cameo, acting as a messenger between two groups attempting to unravel the mystery behind the city-wide blackout.
Uclés explains that after receiving the Montserrat Roig grant in 2022, he relocated from Paris to Barcelona, ended a long-term relationship, and began writing. He views “the craft of writing as that of a war correspondent, where you’re sent to an unknown territory and have to get to know it, try to defend it, and share it with others.”
Uclés invites readers to interpret the darkness enveloping Barcelona in their own way. “It could be mass tourism and gentrification, leading to a loss of neighborhood life and identity. For the characters, it might represent the human condition, death, or disappearance. From a political standpoint, it could symbolize fascism, as many of the characters experienced the dictatorship, exile, or fought to dismantle the remnants of Franco’s regime.”
He encourages readers to “not get fixated on the trees, but try to enjoy the forest, because it’s a very encyclopedic novel, filled with a lot of details. It’s not chaotic, because I’m very obsessive and try to organize everything, but I also want readers to feel, when they close the book, that they’ve experienced many Barcelonas.”
The book’s cover, designed by Diego Robledo, reflects this layered quality. Uclés notes he’s collaborated with a different artist for each of his four novels (the first two: El llanto del león from Ediciones Complutense and Emilio y Octubre from Dos Bigotes). In 2021, he sketched one of the lampposts on Passeig de Gràcia, “with a beam of light and some stick figures underneath,” and gave the artist “a list of 50 things that appear in the book and he managed to include 40.”
A Homage to Zafón
Carlos Ruiz Zafón is featured in the prologue, a deliberate choice by Uclés to address what he sees as the late author’s lack of recognition. Uclés believes Zafón’s books have had a lasting impact and deserve more acclaim. Aware that this opening might not appeal to “the more snobbish critics,” he adds, “I haven’t made decisions based on what critics want. I’ve done what I wanted to do.”
Describing the novel’s style, Uclés calls it an exercise in “literary memory,” clarifying that there’s “more surrealism than magical realism, because the agents are genuinely surprised by what happens.” He admits he finds “pleasure in creating those scenes” where he brings together characters from different eras.
If he had to choose one image to represent the book, he’d pick the “death of Gil de Biedma in Turó Park, beneath a dying magnolia tree, with Freddie Mercury and Magic Johnson—both of whom died of AIDS—causing all the magnolias in the city to bloom.” The narrator seizes the opportunity to include verses by the poet, a technique he employs freely, incorporating other texts without directly citing their authors, such as Juan Marsé or Joan Manuel Serrat.
Darkness and Hope
In the face of the rise of the far-right, Uclés is adamant that “fascism doesn’t read novels,” but he believes “in the power of art to change consciousness and to create the hope that is so necessary in dark times.” He adds that art “has always been a tool for emotional catharsis with others.” He points out that “there are no politicians in the book, none at all—only artists,” and concludes that “we need a lot of hope now because we feel like we’re going downhill.”
Looking ahead, Uclés plans to move abroad to write his next novel, a project he anticipates will take three years. He reveals he’ll be shifting genres, towards “the magic of the everyday,” wanting each novel to be “a challenge.” He dismisses the idea of publishing a collection of short stories to maintain a presence in the publishing world, despite having 300 pages of related stories from La península de las casas vacías.
He also confirms he has an outline for a second installment of his novel about the Spanish Civil War, but prefers to let it sit for now, wanting to mature as a writer and person before tackling the post-war period.
A Novel About AIDS
Another project on his mind is dedicating an entire novel to AIDS, a theme that surfaces briefly in La ciudad de las luces muertas. As a gay man, he says he is “very aware” and gets tested annually, despite not engaging in risky behavior.
He believes a tribute is due to “those people in the 80s, who were dying in droves in the hospital, in a ward, separated from everyone else, having lost their jobs. It was horrible.”
He confesses to keeping a poem cycle about his arrhythmia in a drawer, which he might revisit, given he’ll need another operation this fall. He dedicates the book to his cardiologists “for keeping my atrium going” and enthusiastically recommends his new favorite novel, La muerte y la primavera by Mercè Rodoreda.
