The poetry of Sheikh Sultan bin Salem Al Qasimi was a directed speech, a documented history, a drawing with words, pure emotion, and mature thought. His poetry was visions of light and a lamp in a niche. It deserves to be read, studied, and followed, especially since it depicts an era in which reading and writing became scarce.
The puppeteer Dingo's carriage hits a young child while passing through the village of Artemilla, the miserable village from which he fled years ago to join a troupe of acrobats, aspiring to make his entire life a continuous festival. He resorts to his old friend, Juan Medinao, to help him in this predicament, but his contact with the village master will finally awaken the details of the painful past, and with them he will begin a relentless journey through memory, recalling his relationship with his father, his mother’s suicide, and the mixture of hatred and love that he felt towards his brother. Stepbrother.
In this small-sized novel, but with a big impact, Anna Maria Matute is able to delve into the depths of her characters, searching for the deep scars that childhood leaves in their souls, revealing with keen insight and high sensitivity the most complex and profound human feelings, in a dense narrative that makes room for emotional feelings. Inferiority, fear, isolation, and hatred can tell their story too.
In the nineteenth century, the Papal Council was studying the canonization of Christoph Columbus as a saint. With his discovery of the New World, he doubled the area of land that Christianity could reach, but the large hall that discusses the matter is full of supporters and opponents of this canonization, as well as real-life figures and invisible ghosts. What will be the final decision?
In this novel, the writer starts from a real event, and takes us centuries back to read what Columbus himself wrote about his travels. The writer presents us with a new picture, removing the legendary aura that history has given to this character.
In this novel, which is the last novel written by Carpentier, he plays the string, the hand, and the shadow, all of which once again confirm this writer’s ability to merge history with art, and reality with the imagination, in a unique style.