Where do all these people live?
Hanguel the father and Hanguel the son (who survive with their noisy absence from each other), the film critic Justin Damianos (a caricature of his very "advanced" self), the fifty-year-old (looks forty) Judith Kasl, desperately searching for love online, the unknown liar who literally pulls his own Golgotha, Jordan Wellington Lint, who suddenly loses his mother and the world, the Monster, who cannot tell anything interesting about his life, the voluptuous Magda Mandela, who cheaply distributes love in her London neighborhood, the Jewish Gideon, who manages his needs in a gypsy way, Cindy Stampenstock, who buys a Picasso print because it "goes" with her fireplace, Frank, Gordon, Lily, Judge Gladys, Nigora, the puppy - and a whole bunch of Others.
Answer: They live next to us, they all exist, they can all exist wonderfully, as long as life allows it, as long as literature allows it, as long as the reader allows it.

This provocative anthology traces in depth - and in an exemplary way - the quintessential theme of all fiction: Character. In this delightful tour de force, the most important voices of Anglo-Saxon literature participate (Zadie Smith - who is also the editor of the volume, not by chance since her "field" par excellence is Character -, David Mitchell, Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem, Colm Toibin, etc.).

These authors ultimately create, adopting styles and themes that dare to be different, a novel - a river centered around the Other character - in a few words, they shape an entire society from scratch, our own, where madness coexists with tenderness, loneliness with companionship, petty interests with organized fraud, dreams with harsh reality, lust with sterility, etc.

"The Book of the Other" is one of the most representative examples of world literature today, which is why, among other things, it is considered an exemplary manual for those who seek their own voice in creative writing schools.

The New York Times wrote about the book: "These stories, whether they are narratives with a "old-fashioned" style, playful improvisations, or comic book stories, urge us to reconsider the old saying that "character is destiny." They remind us that a person's life is in itself a narrative, with a beginning, middle, and, if nothing else, hints of an end. And they present us with the established techniques that writers use to depict their characters' dilemmas, from direct internal dialogue and the use of unreliable narrators to violent shifts in narrative perspective."

"The Book of the Other" was published in 2007 and the proceeds from its rights will be donated to 826NYC, a non-profit organization that supports young people up to the age of eighteen in developing their expressive and writing abilities, as well as inspiring educators to encourage their students to write.