HOTEL LA SOLITUDE
«This peace I feel now springs from the precise awareness of my fundamental solitude. Deep in the core of each of us, we are all isolated. We arrive alone, and we depart alone. That is the inescapable truth. Each life is like a play, in which that one is the protagonist. Other characters enter and leave the stage; some accompany us through entire acts. Yet at the end of the performance, when the curtain falls, only that one remains, solitary, on the stage of existence. For the sake of justice, let us not project onto another the cure, the antidote to our inescapable solitude.» (p. 54)
Synopsis
What baggage do we carry when crossing the threshold of a hotel room?
In Hotel La Solitude, room 318 becomes the intimate stage for three lives in search of redemption. Irene, a housewife trapped in a forty-year marriage, revisits memories of a happier past as she struggles to escape the oppression of daily life. Luís, a retired inspector, sinks into grief over his wife’s death, seeking meaning in isolation. Vasco, a successful businessman, arrives at the hotel by chance, fleeing the chaos of a stifling life that pushes him to the brink of madness. The hotel becomes a refuge, a liminal space, detached from their homes and personal arenas of conflict. A quiet stage where their inner struggles unfold.
In the Press
«A tripartite novel that allows us to follow the inner lives of three people at particularly difficult moments in their lives, this is a narrative in which the spectre of helplessness lurks around every corner, as if, when all is said and done, we were always profoundly alone. However convincing the illusion to the contrary may be.»
Sérgio Almeida · Jornal de Notícias
«Hotel La Solitude: Redemption Can Always Wait»
Book Details
Title: Hotel La Solitude
Author: Vítor Leal Barros
Publisher: Idioteque, 2025
ISBN: 978-989-36274-1-9
Legal Deposit: 551083/25
Dimensions: 240 x 162 x 17 mm
Pages: 292
Price (incl. VAT): €17.50 + shipping fees