No Quisimos Ser Soldados

We didn't want to be soldiers' immerses us in the lives of three anonymous men who find in sex a refuge, a place where desire and intimacy become their only salvation in the face of fear, lack of love and the danger of loving outside heterosexual norms. Francisco Javier Olivas offers us a raw and powerful narrative, where love, pain and self-discovery intertwine in a scenario marked by repression and the struggle for identity. Through these characters, Olivas explores three stories that are impossible to unite: a man facing the uncertainty of a possibly definitive goodbye, another whose soul has been disfigured by hatred, and a third who, in the intimacy of a bedroom, hides his true identity in order to survive in a world that marginalizes him. Each intimate encounter is an act of resistance, a cry for sexual and emotional freedom in times where exclusivity and heteronormativity are imposed as absolute norms. Olivas' fourth novel is a hymn to authenticity, an invitation to immerse oneself in the complexities of desire and love in a world that still condemns what is different. It is a story where the body becomes a battlefield and love, in its purest form, defies all conventions.