How to Dismiss a Civil Servant and Other Stories

Ángel Vallecillo (Valladolid, 1968) is the author of the novels Colapsos (Miguel Delibes Prize 2006), Akúside (Critics' Prize of Castile and León 2018), 9 Horas para morir, and his most recent novel, Hambrientos y Cobardes, a finalist for the Ignotus Prize 2021. He has also collaborated with prominent nature photographers on large-format books such as Mar Atlante or Rapaces de Canarias. His literature adheres to avant-garde and eclectic criteria. He is the author of a dozen documentary scripts, and in 2009 he co-directed the documentary film Mar de Nadie. He delivered a TEDx talk entitled La Verdad de las mentiras. His first comic book as a scriptwriter, El Granjero Fantasma, is scheduled for publication. He is a traveler who has journeyed alone through 32 countries and is an enthusiast of literary creation, to which he dedicated an essay entitled Elogio del Fracaso, published in 2012 by the University of Valladolid. How to Dismiss a Civil Servant and Other Stories is a compilation of short stories by Vallecillo, whom it is difficult to classify within a single genre. The themes and styles of these stories are diverse: a man trapped in an apocalyptic traffic collapse, a dystopia where procreation has been prohibited, the implausible history of two white paintings, or the biography of a writer who practices literary terrorism. Regarding form, these stories vary between the measured and descriptive narrative of his early tales and the dysfunctionality and rogue nature of the final story: "How to Dismiss a Civil Servant", a lampoon wherein one can enjoy the acidity and stylistic acrobatics of this highly singular writer.