A Writer’s Transformation

When I was an undergrad in Hispanic Studies, I read Esther Tusquets’s novel The Same Sea as Every Summer in Spanish. The novel was incredibly hard for me to read. I suffered so much with this book that I never read anything by this author again.

Recently, I discovered that, after a long silence, Tusquets has published a new novel. I started reading it and realized that the text was very accessible and not hard at all.

“She started writing much better,” I concluded.

Then, for the purposes of my research I started rereading The Same Sea as Every Summer that had been so hard for me to read 10 years ago. Surprisingly, there was nothing at all complicated or confusing about this text.

It turns out that Tusquets did not become a better writer. Rather, I have become a better reader of Spanish.