Revenge cover
Not so long ago, the stands behind Spanish football stadiums served as loudspeakers for a large percentage of people with a deep and abiding interest in violence. Physically or verbally. Sport was actually an excuse. The hours leading up to games became a staple of either finding peers from the rival fans to exchange punches and smacks, or brawling with the police in a choreography of running, punching and overturned containers.
Swastikas and racist or homophobic shouts appeared on these stands. Actually, they had nothing to do with football. It was violence for violence’s sake, hate for hate’s sake. Those screams and violence were the final expression of something much deeper than the love of a shirt or a sign. They were – and still are today – the way out of the diverse circumstances that come together in some people. These circumstances were in large part traumata, stemming from childhood or adolescence, which translated into seemingly irrational hatred.
Revenge (Anagram), a novel by Kiko Amat, begins with this atavistic hate and builds a story of broken characters who unknowingly seek redemption. Whichever. It can be through violence or through love. Amador belongs to an ultra group of Barcelona Football Club and is dedicated to extortion, drug sales and caning. He hides his homosexuality. César, who played rugby, is dedicated to the execution of pederasts, or drivers who hit someone and fled. Both will see their lives intersect and lead them down an unexpected path for two people who only wanted revenge. A book full of violence – also in language -, full of reality and hatred against everything and everyone. A revenge against life.
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