DEATH AND ITS DUTIES frames a series of short stories, very brief ones, mini-stories in themselves, that lead the reader through a kind of quasi-dreamlike labyrinth in which a series of characters meet head-on with unsuspected situations, which only an author of the stature of Daniel Baruc Espinal, winner of international awards in various genres, could imagine. The author manifests an impeccable understanding of the mechanics and subtleties of the craft of storytelling; affirms and reaffirms in each installment (with bittersweet humor, with cutting creativity) Death as the protagonist, not only of these stories told with the precision of a surgeon to rough away excesses, but also of our existential condition.