Book of the Week | Atentamente (Libros del K.O.), by Blanca Lacasa

We write every day. We send emails, leave notes on the fridge, make shopping lists, or jot down thoughts in whatever notebook we have on hand. These are such everyday actions that we hardly even notice them. However, Blanca Lacasa suggests that we pause precisely there: in that everyday writing to which we rarely attribute any literary value.

In Atentamente, published by Libros del K.O., the Madrid-based writer makes a case for all those forms of communication that are part of our lives and that, despite their constant presence, are often excluded from what we understand as literature. The premise is simple, but it invites us to reconsider an interesting question: Why do we consider writing a book to be more valuable than writing a letter to a friend?

To explore this idea, Lacasa draws on her own personal archive and the writings of authors such as Emily Dickinson, Roland Barthes, Annie Ernaux, and Gianni Rodari, as well as texts by anonymous individuals. The result is an exploration of the various ways in which writing is part of our relationships, our memory, and our way of seeing the world.

For those of us who love the sea, the anecdotes of Herman Melville—author of Moby Dick, yes, but also of some fascinating letters to his neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, of which only those that Hawthorne kept have survived—are particularly compelling. Did you know that Melville burned all his correspondence? These kinds of details—scholarly yet lighthearted, fascinating yet mundane—dot the book, making it a delight to read.

The author, who had already explored family relationships brilliantly in Las hijas horribles and fiction in El accidente, shifts her perspective here to focus on something much closer to home. Emails, diaries, postcards, and messages cease to be mere tools of communication and become small spaces for creativity: writing without grand pretensions, yet full of intention, humor, and personality.

The book also serves as an invitation to rediscover the joy of writing without necessarily thinking about publication. At a time when much of our communication takes place through screens and instant messages, Lacasa champions the value of devoting time to words and finding in them a way to connect with others.

In short, Atentamente is a defense of writing as an everyday act and an invitation to pay attention to everything we write and receive without—perhaps unfairly—considering it literature.

Where can I buy it? Atentamente, by Blanca Lacasa, is published by Libros del K.O., has 216 pages, and has a suggested retail price of 22.90 euros.