Aurelio Serrano’s 'El intervalo' Explores the Taboos of Perinatal Grief and Caregiving

• Author Aurelio Serrano tackles the societal taboos of perinatal loss and the realities of caring for dependent individuals in his new novel, El intervalo.
• Rooted in his own experience of losing a child 15 years ago, the book focuses not on the acute phase of grief, but on the long-term silence and emotional distance it creates between partners.
• The narrative contrasts the protagonist’s internal emotional paralysis with the raw, physical demands of caregiving for a paralyzed friend.

Core Themes

• Perinatal Grief: Explores how mothers and fathers experience loss differently, often leading to profound, unspoken rifts in a relationship.
• The Reality of Care: The novel depicts the less-glamorous aspects of caregiving, including bodily fluids, physical crises, and the necessity of addressing intimacy and sexual needs for people with disabilities.
• Challenging Silence: Serrano uses literature as a tool to break the silence surrounding societal taboos, specifically avoiding a didactic or "thesis-driven" approach.

Purpose and Method

• The title, El intervalo (The Interval), refers to the time it takes to process the death of a loved one—the distance between receiving the news and fully realizing the loss.
• Writing as Communication: Serrano notes that the book served as a way to say things to his wife that he was unable to articulate in any other way, rather than as a purely therapeutic path to catharsis.
• Ethical Considerations: The author grapples with the ethics of writing about personal pain, striving to acknowledge his privilege while ensuring the work serves as a genuine bridge for communication rather than an instrumentalization of trauma.