The novelist and screenwriter of films such as 21 Grams (2003) and Amores Perros (2000) has a new novel, ‘El Hombre’ (Alfaguara).

It is almost six o'clock on a hot summer day in Madrid when I meet Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico City, 1958). We meet in a room where he has been receiving colleagues since the morning, at the Alfaguara publishing house, publisher of his latest novel, ‘El Hombre.’   I can't help thinking that this situation, with certain doses of action, could well give rise to one of those distressing passages to which we are accustomed in his novels. However, his mood seems intact, and he smiles at me as if he had just taken a shower and had his first morning coffee.

He is imposing. He is physically imposing, not only because of his size and gray penetrating eyes, but also because of his accomplishments, because I am aware that I stand before the author of ‘El Salvaje’ and ‘Salvar el fuego,’ and of the screenwriter of Amores perros and Los tres entierros de Melquiades Estrada.

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