LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016

ObserverandDaily TelegraphBook of the Year 2016

David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simón and Inés take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language, he has begun to make friends and he has the big dog Bolívar to watch over him.

But he'll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, Davíd is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky. But it's here too that he will make troubling discoveries about what adults are capable of.

The Schooldays of Jesusis a mesmerising tale about growing up, and about the choices we are forced to make in our lives.