Julio Millares

My friend Julian Julio Millares

"The Book of Joy" is a series of humorous and tender stories about the different fears and difficulties that children have in the first years of their lives, such as the one they feel before the arrival of a sibling, the one of going through the hole of the bathtub when the water is taken out, the death of a loved one, and so on. There are no limits to the imagination and everything is possible following the narrative logic of the initial problem. All the stories are made from a children's perspective and the high dramatic content of the situations they face is faithfully reflected in them. In the story "My friend Julian", the girl is very afraid at the beginning of school and before this situation she summons Julian, her imaginary friend. With him she plays and manages during the first days when she is totally strange in the new environment and in which she doesn't know anyone, until she makes contact with another girl in the same situation and they soon become friends. Her friend Julian then makes himself to one side but she is sure that he will return to her side when she needs him. A book full of drama that combines two crucial themes in childhood: the fear of the first day of school and the presence of the imaginary friend from the perspective of the protagonist girl. Julio Millares won the Vargas Llosa Prize for novels and the Imaginaria Prize for children's stories. He lived in Brazil, Italy, France, Mexico and Sweden before returning to his native Argentina. He is a professor at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Cuyo.