BOOKPATHS

Madrid, Spain

David Farley discovers Ernest Hemingway's Madrid.

Hemingway is associated with a handful of places around the planet -- most notably Paris, Pamplona, Havana, Key West and Ketchum, Idaho, where he took his own life in July 1961.  But none may have held a warmer spot in his heart than Madrid, which he called 'the most Spanish of all cities,' referring to its diverse population from every region of the country.  He also titled a short story based in Madrid 'The Capital of the World.'

Barcelona, Spain

Matthew Tree chooses "10 of the best literary haunts in Barcelona."

Barcelona, Spain

Cathedral of the Sea, by Ildefonso Falcones, translated by Nick Caistor (New York: New American Library, 2008); first published in 2006)

Readers follow Arnau Estanyol from birth to old age, his life interweaving with the construction of the Cathedral of Santa María de la Mar in 14th century Barcelona.  Highly satisfying, Cathedral of the Sea explores “friendship and revenge, plague and hope, love and war.”  You’ll no doubt want to learn more about medieval Span after finishing the novel and, perhaps, consider a journey, a “bookpath,” to Barcelona and Santa María de la Mar.

Barcelona’s Ribera de Mar neighborhood, where the church in honor of the Virgin Mary was being built, had grown up as an outlying suburb of the Carolingian city, surrounded and protected by the old Roman walls.  At the outset it was inhabited by fishermen, stevedores, and other humble workmen.  It already had a small church, known as Santa Maria de las Arenas, raised on the spot where Saint Eulàlia was said to have been martyred in the year 303.  This church got its name from the fact that it was built on Barcelona’s sandy shoreline, but the same process of sedimentation that had made the city’s ports unusable led to the church becoming separated from the sands of the coast, so that its name gradually lost its meaning.  That was when it became known as Santa María de la Mar, because although the coast was no longer close by, all the men who made their living from the sea still worshipped there. – from Cathedral of the Sea, by Ildefonso Falcones

Related Websites

Publisher’s Website

Santa María de la Mar, Barcelona (Wikipedia)

Spain

Boyd Tonkin considers “the secrets and struggles behind Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s success.”

'The Angel's Game' revisits some of Zafón's much-loved urban landscapes in old Barcelona. Yet this novel stands alone, a complement or even an antagonist to its forerunner ['Shadow of the Wind']. If the previous book celebrated the ecstasies of reading then this one – no less in love with literature, and no less crammed with archetypal plots – explores the agonies of writing. – from “In the Shadow of a Lost City: The Secrets and Struggles Behind Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Success,” by Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

Spain

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of Shadow of the Wind, is interviewed in The Times.

In my defence, I would say that in an age of iPods, games consoles and YouTube, I still believe that nothing can tell a story with the depth and beauty of a book. I believe that language is the software of our minds, the blueprint of our identity. Our brains function along narrative structures and crave stimulation. Among many other things, good literature should tickle the brain. I try to do that. I try very hard. – from “Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Times Interview"

Granada, Spain

A Season in Granada: Uncollected Poems and Prose, by Federico García Lorca, edited and translated by Christopher Maurer (London, England: Anvil Press Poetry, 1998)
 
Celebrating "the city in which [Federico García Lorca] grew up and where he wrote some of his best work," this spare, beautiful, volume should accompany all travelers to Granada.

Why must we always use only our sight, and never our smell or taste to study a city?  The special pastries, the 'alfajor', the 'torta alajú', the 'mantecado' of Laujar, tell us quite as much about Granada as do its glazed tiles or Moorish arches.  And the marzipan of Toledo with its monstrous vestment of plums and anise pearls, invented by a cook of Carlos V, speaks more poignantly of the Emperor’s Germanic origins than does his ruddy chin.  While a cathedral remains fastened to its own epoch, its profile slowly crumbling away, eternally unable to step into the next day, a song leaps suddenly from its epoch into ours, live and nervous as a frog, with its fresh melancholy or fresh happiness, as miraculous as the seed that flowers when taken from the Pharaoh’s tomb.  So then, let us 'hear' the city of Granada. – from “How a City Sings from November to November,” A Season in Granada: Uncollected Poems and Prose, by Federico García Lorca

Publisher’s Website

Soria, Spain

John Motyka visits the homeland of Antonio Machado, “one of the great lyric poets of the 20th century."

“Soria — ‘Soria fría, Soria pura’ (Cold Soria! Pure Soria), as Machado described it in a poem — is much changed since he departed in 1912 after the death of his child bride, Leonor. Yet, off the international tourist map and largely left behind by Spain’s sprawling development, the city of Soria and the province of the same name, of which it is the capital, retain a powerful sense of place.” – from “A Poet’s Realm of Myth and Reality,” by John Motyka, The New York Times

Madrid, Spain

Andrew Ferren writes about Francisco Goya’s Madrid.

But Goya, who served four Spanish monarchs through war and convulsive social and political upheaval, didn’t begin at the Prado, and not all his works have ended up there. One can trace his trajectory and discover some of the hidden gems of Madrid by seeking out the Goyas that remain elsewhere in the city, including where the artist left them. – from "Goya Framed by His City, Madrid,” by Andrew Ferren, The New York Times

La Huerta de San Vicente, Granada, Spain

This weekend a major exhibition will open at the summer home of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. During the exhibition, “the poet’s summer home…will be peppered with modern tributes to his life and work, including photographs, music, sculptures and paintings.”

See the Casa-Museo Federico García Lorca website for visitor information.

Spain

Arturo Pérez-Reverte talks to Elizabeth Nash “about war, patriotism and learning from history.”

“Why write? I ask Spain's bestselling author of adventures and historical potboilers. The packed bar in Madrid's Palace Hotel empties as crowds move to an art auction in the next salon. Arturo Pérez-Reverte breaks the hush. ;I clarify things. I organise things. I lead a very chaotic life. Writing enables me to reflect on this. It consoles me for the bad things and celebrates the good. It's a form of organising the intellectually disordered baggage of my life.’" – from “Arturo Pérez-Reverte: Freedom and the Patriot,” by Elizabeth Nash, The Independent