BARCELONA – Argentine writer Lazaro Covadlo presented on Wednesday “Las salvajes muchachas del partido,” an adventure novel with psychological nuances, along with real settings and people, including Juan Domingo Peron and Isaak Babel, who are set in contrast to the central character, Baruj Kowenski, a wandering Jew.

Covadlo, who has lived in Spain since 1975, said Wednesday at a press conference that with this new book he had delved into the “mine of my biography.”

He had converted, he said, a number of his life experiences into fiction, including the story of his grandfather, a Ukrainian Jew who at the end of the 19th century joined the anarchist movement and emigrated to Argentina, where he became a smuggler and then later returned to Europe to participate in the Russian Revolution, where all trace of him was lost.

Although he said that this new work is not an autobiographical novel, the author acknowledged that “the writer, although he may be telling a fairy story, always, in one way or another, is talking about himself, and he refers to his own dreams and frustrations” when incorporating subject matter into a book.

Born in 1937, Covadlo became known in literary circles after the 1997 publication of his book of short stories entitled “Agujeros negros,” which was very well-received critically. EFE