An English translation by Margaret Jull Costa based on the Spanish version was published in 1992.

You don't remember all the places of the past, but what sticks in the memory is this window, that stone, the bridge.

"[2] Maggie Traugott of The Independent wrote: "Atxaga loves parody, riddles, manipulating texts within texts, which could of course all turn pretentious and hard-going if it weren't handled with charm and dexterity."

Traugott wrote that the Basque language "has been 'hiding away like a hedgehog', fortifying itself largely on an oral tradition.

Atxaga has not only awakened the hedgehog, but has brought it into the context of his own wide and idiosyncratic reading of world literature.