The Dear Ones — Berta Davila

Translated by Jacob Rogers

The Dear Ones is a book about a woman who decides to have an abortion five years after having a child. A mother full of guilt, who does not fit into the imposed canon. It is a book in where the protagonist advocates for the freedom of choice: to continue to be herself and, at the same time, to be a mother.

She defends the choice not to procreate again. The idea of guilt in motherhood, the obligation to feel a certain way, the way in which others relate to women's decisions and the loneliness implicit in all the processes that involve taking in emotions that are considered incorrect or atavistic, an enormous isolation that is invisible to others, hover over the pages of the book. It is a story about emotional bonds.

Berta Davila's prose is transparent, simple and accurate. But its skeleton is made up of a temporal braid in which a writer recalls the birth and first months of life of her son just when, five years later, she has decided to have an abortion and not have her second. She do