To The Read­er, this open­ing note is not just a for­mal­i­ty but a point­ed defense of truth against the spread of fan­ta­sy. The writer, J. de Luna, steps for­ward not only as a sto­ry­teller but as a wit­ness deter­mined to restore dig­ni­ty to a tale that has, in his eyes, been twist­ed into non­sense. A ver­sion of Lazaril­lo’s life, recent­ly print­ed and cir­cu­lat­ed, told of him falling into the sea and trans­form­ing into a fish—a tuna no less—complete with under­wa­ter bat­tles, a scaly wife, and tuna off­spring. To accept such a tale would be to accept mock­ery in place of mem­o­ry. De Luna, offend­ed by the absur­di­ty, is deter­mined to set the record straight. Not because he loathes fic­tion, but because this fic­tion intrudes on a sto­ry too human to be han­dled with such care­less­ness.

He explains that his nar­ra­tive is not born from whim or imag­i­na­tion but from records kept in the rogues’ archives of Tole­do. These writ­ings, tucked away and long for­got­ten, came into his hands as if fate want­ed to reclaim Lazaril­lo’s truth. Along­side these pages, de Luna recalls how the sto­ry of Lazaril­lo had always lin­gered in his child­hood home—passed between fam­i­ly mem­bers over warm meals, debat­ed with earnest laugh­ter and seri­ous nods. He men­tions a par­tic­u­lar mem­o­ry where his rel­a­tives argued about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sur­viv­ing under­wa­ter for long peri­ods, ref­er­enc­ing a pas­sage from this very account. It was an old swim­mer, lean and sharp-eyed, who once assured them that such feats were pos­si­ble. Accord­ing to him, a man from the region had entered a hid­den cave beneath the Tagus Riv­er and emerged the next day, unharmed and unaware of the grief he had caused.

These rec­ol­lec­tions, though shaped by time, lend a weight to de Luna’s con­vic­tion. He does not claim to erase every exag­ger­a­tion, but he promis­es not to invent where inven­tion would insult expe­ri­ence. His ver­sion, he says, holds clos­er to fact, to those strange truths that hov­er just out­side the bor­der of the believ­able. He believes read­ers deserve more than whimsy—they deserve a Lazaril­lo shaped by hard­ship, cun­ning, and real con­se­quence. With this, he asks not just for atten­tion, but for patience. He knows that the truth does not glit­ter as bright­ly as fan­ta­sy, but it endures more deeply. In a world filled with dis­trac­tion, de Luna offers this ver­sion not as a per­fect record, but as the most faith­ful one he can find.

As he draws the read­er clos­er, de Luna shifts from for­mal apol­o­gy to an invi­ta­tion. He promis­es moments of laugh­ter, dis­com­fort, and recognition—all framed by a voice that speaks from the mar­gins of soci­ety, yet touch­es its very cen­ter. The Lazaril­lo he presents is not a hero, not a fish, but a man who stum­bled often and sur­vived even more. The sto­ry, drawn from both ink and mem­o­ry, weaves togeth­er what was writ­ten and what was whis­pered, shap­ing a nar­ra­tive that reflects both fact and the shad­ows that facts leave behind. To read on is to step into a life marked by mis­for­tune and irony, told not with grandeur, but with grit.

He also reminds the read­er that myths, while enter­tain­ing, can become dan­ger­ous when they replace under­stand­ing. The bizarre tale of fish bat­tles and under­wa­ter king­doms may amuse, but it drowns the real voice of Lazarillo—the one that still mat­ters. Through this cor­rec­tion, de Luna gives Lazaril­lo back to those who need his sto­ry most: the for­got­ten, the under­es­ti­mat­ed, the observers at the edges. This is a book for those who know what it means to endure with­out applause. For read­ers tired of pol­ished lies, he offers some­thing sharp­er, stranger, and—most importantly—true.

De Luna’s mes­sage is not just lit­er­ary house­keep­ing; it is a plea for clar­i­ty in a world crowd­ed with noise. In a time when every ver­sion of a sto­ry seems equal­ly valid, he asks us to pause and con­sid­er the cost of that belief. If every lie is as wel­come as the truth, then how does a real life sur­vive? Lazarillo’s tale is not one of mag­ic, but of maneu­ver­ing. And to under­stand it prop­er­ly is to rec­og­nize not just the clev­er­ness of one man, but the resilience buried in every­day sur­vival. That, de Luna believes, is the sto­ry worth read­ing.