The story of a journey to understand life. Or at least try to.
After the unexpected death of a classmate, Daniel, about to graduate from university, is plunged into a personal and existential crisis. But one thing is clear to him: he does not want his final thesis (or his life) to be reduced to investigating, other people’s ideas from some obscure office. Thus, his research work becomes a fieldwork that will take him across Europe to interview travellers who, like him, have wanted to go out, listen and touch the world with their own hands.
Hostels, night trains, love stories, bar fights, concerts, conversations with strangers, sleepless nights and speechless landscapes: Daniel’s journey is one of transformation and answers the academic world has failed to give him. Along the way, he will learn that life doesn’t always give you beautiful sunrises and sunsets: sometimes, it’s up to you to go out there and paint the sky red.
Winner of the XIV Carlemany Award for the Promotion of Reading, Paint the Sky Red is a vibrant and luminous novel that captures the desire to go out into the world and the sweet weight of nostalgia, and what it means to really live before the little flame inside all of us goes out. With a strong millennial spirit and the raw honesty of a generation that grew up between crisis and reinvention, Jose López speaks directly to readers still wondering if their life compass is properly calibrated.
“Yes. Or what you said about sunsets—that when the sky turns red, life feels a little lighter, like the world pauses for a moment and gives us a break from all the bad.”
“Yeah, but you can’t always catch those sunsets. The sky isn’t always painted in colors. Life isn’t always that beautiful. […] So, what does your work teach us?”
“That sometimes, you have to go out there and paint the sky red yourself.”