The work, narrated in the first person and set in Toledo during the plague outbreak of 1598, is an ode to courage and the spirit of overcoming difficulties, presented through the diary of its protagonist.
The jury highlighted the quality of the prose and the author's ability to create an intimate story without ever losing its tone and frenetic pace. In the narrative, Espido Freire skillfully handles various literary devices and plays with an archaic style that allows one to fully immerse oneself in the era of this novel.
If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that literature and history teach us not only what life and thought were like in the past, but also how we construct our reality today. The Plague Diary speaks as much about the challenges of a girl in the 16th century as it does about those any boy faces now: who he is, courage in the face of difficult situations, the difference between appearances and reality, attitudes toward injustice, and learning who he can trust, among other challenges. None of this belongs solely to one era.
