In November 1935, Roberto Arlt, who was a famous columnist working for The World Argentinean newspaper at that time,caught a train from Santander to Bilbao. His task was to go on with the tales of manners series which he published from time to time under the title of Etchings. Devoting all his narrative talent totally to these short urban chronicles, Arlt showed his astonishment before one of the most “ self satisfied” countries he had ever seen during his journey through the Iberian Peninsula. The industrial Bilbao with its narrow back streets; a mixture of opulence and necessity, the birth of steel in the Blast Furnaces in Barakaldo, the matriarch society represented by women in Bermeo, the mixture of religion and stone in Elorrio, the autumns in San Sebastian… Everything is gathered, between fascination and mordacity in the series of articles of this Argentinean newspaper we have recovered for this edition.
