Confessions of a Guardian Angel

The eleven short stories that comprise "Confessions of a Guardian Angel," Carlos Trigueiro's new book, are actually accounts of Mahlaliel, a disbelieving and rebellious angel with an enviable track record: in his 2,578 years, he has guarded, among others, witches, queens, artists, journalists, prostitutes, spies, graffiti artists, and the precursors of bloggers. By revealing stories hidden between the skirts of a novice, lost in a New York subway car, spilled from the mouth of a taxi driver, or torn to shreds by a perfectionist writer, Mahlaliel paints—appropriating, of course, Trigueiro's limpid and ironic prose—a scathing vision of humanity. His goal? "I want, without distinction of ethnicity, to shake beliefs and disbeliefs," reveals the angel. "Only then will my indignation resonate like a terrorist artifact in a tourist attraction, a subway station, or an embassy building. I will not announce the anticipation of the Apocalypse, an event already predicted by sensible earthly readers, immune to both the neoliberal fever and the current socialism—and to industrialized mysticism—and who have perceived the irreversible predation of their surroundings. It's all clear. Science and the Internet are there to prove it with technological refinements and colorful animation: for millions of years, the human species was not missed in the slightest. The process of earth erosion was natural. With man came intelligent and profitable erosion! Nothing escapes it. Not the void. Not time. Man managed to accelerate the future, but buried the hope of getting there." In the opinion of fiction writer, poet, and essayist Jair Ferreira dos Santos, "the sometimes ceremonial, sometimes colloquial language of the angels is translated by Carlos Trigueiro into light and engaging prose, whose variations touch, pleasantly, here the chronicle, there the fable, giving agility to his rich imagination in stories that ultimately aim to enlighten the conscience, to raise awareness of ethics. Not even a roguish tone disguises the moral energy with which the author feels invested. That is, no matter how much disintegration, nihilism, amoralism, and rascality the world presents, and throws angels into paradox or on the brink of giving up, it is worthwhile for a writer to emphasize the profound, humanizing advantages of Good. "Confessions of a Guardian Angel" is a testament to the talent and versatility of Carlos Trigueiro, who, with the theme of confession as his focal point, begins with this volume his new literary triad—the Confession Trilogy.