El olvido de sí

This book tells the troubled and overwhelming story of Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a French aristocrat converted to Christianity thanks to the faith and devotion he saw in Islam. Few biographies as moving and emblematic as that of this strange missionary, who had to go through being an explorer of the Sahara, a Trappist novice, an errand boy for nuns and even the author of the first French-Tuareg dictionary -among many other trades-, before discovering friendship as the most beautiful gift of a life given over to silence. The reasons for this eventful vital vicissitudes are found in how much this man heard about himself, as well as in his faithful and implacable obedience to his conscience. Wounded by the passion of the Absolute, who later became known as 'the universal brother', he always sought to be less: a more hidden existence, a more anonymous dedication, a deeper humility... Fascinated by this desire to abase himself, Pablo d' Ors gets into the head and heart of this flamboyant character. The result is one of the most intense and portentous novels of recent decades in the Spanish language. A text in which mystical wisdom resonates and that narrates, with as much plasticity as depth, the dangerous and wonderful extremes to which love leads. An authentic compendium of spirituality for the 21st century. A parable of how human failure paradoxically leads to fulfillment.