Esteban Correa
Esteban Correa was born in Buenos Aires in 1980. He is the author, editor and columnist of web sites about different topics. He runs multiplatform media. He studied multimedia design and computer science. He is enthusiastic about technological subjects and general literature, mainly fantasy genre. In Akiro and a door in the journey, he managed to combine technology, fantasy, the natural world and science fiction.
He is married to Erica Pagella. He is Jeremías and Amelie’s father.
One night, his son Jeremías insisted him upon reading a tale before going to bed. And, in an improvised short story, the main plot from this story was born.
AUTHOR’S NOTES
I believe Akiro represents and symbolizes a connection between generations. The best fictional stories are nothing but a simple reflection of ourselves, in these stories we find what is human and what is real; if it wasn’t this way, they would be lack of the great interest they stimulate and they would lose all practical sense.
Some time after I had written some parts, I realized that I had written something that was in my mind in an unconscious way. I believe that every thing we do reflects what we are, what we believe and what we think.
In this story, the family is very present. It is the basis for everything, one of the greatest treasures we have and, in these years, it is being very attacked and distorted in different ways. The family needs and deserves to be supported, because it’s the main basis of society. Either as a son, as a father, brother or grandfather, you will probably find characters and situations which will make you feel identified with this story.
The Walkers are inspired in a lot of people I have met. It means: “the wanderers”. They live in Mare Ruch, an advanced city full of comfort and modern progress. But they express an essential emptyness; it seems like all they have is not enough for living a full and satisfactory life.
A dream about what was about to come
I remember that when I was 12 or 13 years old I had an “AT 286” computer with a DOS operational system, all black and white, very limited and hard to use. You could only execute one basic program at a time, it did not even had a rigid disk, it just saved data in those big diskettes (5 ¼). One night, I dreamed something that shocked me. In the dream, I turned on the computer and suddenly it opened some kind of program full of information and all kind of data; everything was in colour, you could see maps and images from the most varied subjects, the feeling was that I could enter one thing or another, and that information was endless, like a huge encyclopedia which came from a place I didn’t understand. I have that image in my mind, which enchanted me because it was coming from my computer, which wasn’t connected to “anything”. In that time, there wasn’t anything similar to it, I had no idea that the Internet was being born in the world.
In the story, these fast technological science advances are the main subject, they show us how useful and essential they are, but also the danger and disadvantages they imply.
The fact of living all the time connected will be something inevitable for people in the future, we can no longer imagine living disconnected, because it is and will be even more “natural” to future generations.
Good literature can be a vertiginous experience, a divine symphony, an exquisite aroma, a delight for the senses. And I am inclined to think that is even better if, in the end, it leaves us something.
