Ricardo Lugo

Es un hombre que nació en una aldea del imperio ruso, en Polonia.

Pero es judío, así que habla yiddish en su casa.

Reza en hebreo.

Después se muda a Viena, que es el imperio astro-húngaro.

read in German, and worked all his life.

He's Russian, he's Austrian, he's Polish, he's Jewish.

The answer is that he was all of that and none of that.

Franz Kafka has a quite similar identity.

I mention that so that you understand the shock of that question.

When they ask him, what nationality are you?

He really continues to be Russian.

For Mendel, that's very confusing.

I don't know if that's exactly the best example, but imagine asking a pre-Columbian indigenous person on October 11, 1492, if they are Latin American or Hispanic American.

It would be...

Una pregunta un poco absurda y Mendel está como que en ese mundo, pero Mendel a diferencia de los indígenas ya interactuó con sus españoles, con el gobierno.

Estaba ahí, ahí mismo, afuera del café estaba la guerra, pero no quiso verla.

Y todo eso me lleva a otro punto muy interesante del libro que es el olvido.

Una escena muy impactante es cuando la gente ya no lo recuerda en el café.

Yes, they are new people, but how is it possible that someone has already forgotten, that this world has forgotten Jacob Mendes?

I felt that when he died at the end, out of pneumonia, it was something additional.